Organizer to be tried over Hefner seminar
JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta police have completed interrogating the host of an unlicensed seminar on Islam which authorities forcibly dispersed last month.
They have formally charged Bondan Gunawan with holding a public gathering without an official permit. Under Indonesian law, he faces a maximum sentence of four years imprisonment if found guilty.
Bondan, who hosted the seminar which featured an American scholar on Indonesia, R. Hefner, said authorities began questioning him Monday.
"I have nothing to worry about, and I want to explain (in court) that the particular article in the Criminal Code which police used to base their charges against me is no longer relevant nowadays," he told The Jakarta Post Tuesday evening after a day of interrogation. Through the more than five hours of questioning on Tuesday, he was accompanied by lawyers Luhut MP Pangaribuan, Hari Purwandoko, Adnan Buyung Nasution and Paulus R. Mahulete from the Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.
Bondan said that police charged him with holding an "illegal activity".
The Criminal Code requires that public gatherings involving more than five people must obtain an official permit. The relevance of this particular law is increasingly being questioned by critics who point out that it is a legacy of the colonial administration which used it to suppress freedom of expression.
The disruption of the seminar was only one in a series of such actions authorities have taken against intellectuals critical of government policies.
The stoppage of the seminar organized by the newly founded Indonesia Baru Foundation was well publicized in international media largely because police also interrogated Hefner, an anthropologist from Boston University, for approximately six hours.
According to Bondan, he is, at present, the only suspect in the case.
Earlier, police announced they had two suspects, Bondan and the seminar's organizer, Sigit Edi Sutomo, who also serves as the foundation's chairman.
Sigit told the Post that he and other organizing committee members had not received any further summons from the police since his questioning immediately following the disruption of the seminar.
"We are ready to appear before investigators any time they request us," Sigit said.
Sigit and three other foundation members Sugeng SP, Taufiqulhadi and Herdi were initially accused of violating rules in the Criminal Code concerning public gatherings.
Police said that Hefner was questioned only as a witness.
In the case of Bondan's seminar a permit for the seminar was granted by a neighborhood head, not by the police. According to Bondan, other seminars have also been disrupted because they have obtained permits from authorities other than the police.
City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Dibyo Widodo insists that, "the existing rule states that the permits have to be issued by the police, not by a neighborhood head." (bsr)