Reporters' libel case adjourned
JAKARTA (JP): Lawyers representing seven dismissed Suara Pembaruan journalists were granted more time yesterday to prepare their reply to the daily's management.
Presiding Judge Willyarto adjourned the session at the East Jakarta District Court until next Wednesday.
The journalists' lawyer, Didi Irawadi Syamsuddin of the Amir Syamsuddin and Partners Law Office, told The Jakarta Post that his team needs more time to respond to the newspaper's claim that their case is "obscure".
On March 26, John Kusnadi and REM Pattikawa, representing PT Media Interaksi Utama -- the newspaper's publisher -- called the suit filed by Petron Curie Nadeak and six other journalists an obscure case of libel.
The lawsuit, originally filed by the seven journalists in February, accused the newspaper's general manager and publisher of defaming their names by removing their names from the daily's masthead.
The journalists, who have worked for the newspaper for between seven and 18 years, blamed General Manager Albert Hasibuan and PT Media Interaksi Mandiri for libeling them. The seven said that they are still working for the paper but that their names have not been on the masthead since Jan. 2 and they have not been paid for months.
Petron, who was called on to testify in court next Wednesday, then referred to two recent letters from the Indonesian Journalists Association and Golkar's faction in the House of Representatives, both of whom asked the daily's management to pay the journalists their salaries while the trial is going on.
Petron told The Post that the Indonesian Journalists Association and the Ministry of Information, at the behest of the journalists, advised the daily's management to settle the problem out of court. However, the newspaper refused, even after the journalists appealed to the Central Committee for Resolving Labor Disputes
Separately, Albert Hasibuan and the daily's publisher have filed a suit with the Jakarta State Administrative Court against the Ministry of Manpower, which, through its Local Committee for Resolving Labor Disputes, turned down the publisher's request to dismiss the journalists. (26)