Slander suspect regrets remark

Slander suspect regrets remark

JAKARTA (JP): A Ministry of Religious Affairs official who is
being tried for slander expressed regret in court yesterday for
making a statement which the predominantly Christian Toraja
community in South Sulawesi found offensive.

The official, a public relations chief of the ministry's
office in South Sulawesi, said during cross-examination at the
Central Jakarta District Court that he had not intended to offend
anyone when he alleged that young women in Toraja were
promiscuous.

His remarks, printed in the Pelita daily in April, prompted
massive protests against the official and the newspaper in Makale
(capital of Toraja regency), Ujungpandang and in Jakarta.

The prosecutor said the statement degraded a particular
religious community in South Sulawesi. If found guilty, the
defendant could be jailed for up to five years.

The 44-year-old defendant said he had asked the Pelita
reporter not to print his statement, because it was an
unsubstantiated allegation which he had first heard from a South
Sulawesi school teacher.

The official reportedly made the statement to the reporter
after taking part in a seminar in Jakarta on ways of containing
the spread of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

He admitted yesterday that during the seminar he raised
concerns about the widespread sales and use of condoms in Toraja.

The defendant also told the court that he had attempted to
apologize over the incident, but was prevented from doing so by
some police officers.

He recalled that as soon as the controversy broke out, while
he was still in Jakarta, he drafted a letter explaining his
position as well as expressing regret to the Torajan people.

But as he was about to make copies at a photocopying store for
the Toraja legislative council, South Sulawesi governor and the
local office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the letter was
seized by two visiting police officers from South Sulawesi.

Unfortunately neither the police nor the prosecutors
acknowledged the existence of the letter, he said, stressing its
importance as a mitigating factor.

The prosecutor last week presented depositions from 12 women
and one young man from Toraja, all refuting the suggestion that
young Torajans are sexually promiscuous, especially with foreign
visitors.

Presiding judge Asmar Ismail adjourned the trial until Tuesday
to hear the prosecutor's sentencing demand. (16)