Reporters' libel case adjourned

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)