Tue, 02 Mar 1999

Student demonstrators gag mouths in court

JAKARTA (JP): A group of 43 students on trial at the Central Jakarta District Court charged with conducting an illegal rally last week appeared on Monday with their mouths sealed with band- aids.

The defendants, who included six girls and two high school students, put on the show of defiance when refusing to give testimony to the panel of judges.

To mock the court many of the students took off their shoes before entering the courtroom, which was packed with their friends.

The students from various universities in Java and grouped in the Indonesian Youth Struggling Front also asked their lawyers from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute not to accompany them during the trial.

The defendants were netted on Jl. Proklamasi on Friday after visiting the National Commission on Human Rights to protest the dismissal of more than a thousand workers of an electronics firm in East Java.

The workers of the Surabaya-based Maspion Group were reportedly dismissed after participating in a mass rally on Feb. 17 to demand a wage increase.

The students were prosecuted in so-called speed trials in three courtrooms presided over by judges Agus A.G. Dewata, Prasadi and Endang Sumarsih.

Shortly after the judges handed down guilty verdicts on the students for holding an unlicensed rally and sentenced them to Rp 2,000 fines or three days in jail, the defendants hastily took off the tiny band-aids and yelled and sang.

Under the watchful eyes of dozens of police officers, the students then left the courtroom without either responding to the verdicts or paying the fines.

Appeal

One of the defense lawyers, Daniel Panjaitan, who witnessed the three-hour trials from the visitors' seats in the company of colleagues, said his clients might appeal the verdicts to the Supreme Court.

Daniel chided the judges for arriving at the verdicts without trying to question either the defendants or the police witnesses or examining the available evidence.

"They should have followed trial procedures even though the defendants refused to answer their questions," the lawyer said.

According to the judges, the defendants were found guilty of violating Article 10 of Law no. 9/1999 on propagating opinions in public places without proper permits and Article 510 of the Criminal Code on illegal rallies.

Those violating the regulations face a maximum punishment of two weeks in jail or fines of up to Rp 2,250.

On Friday, 47 students of Perbanas economic and banking institute charged similarly for a different occasion walked out at the same court before the judges could read out the verdict.

But the judges -- in the absence of the defendants -- fined the protesting students the amount of Rp 2,000 each.

As in the case of Monday's trial, none of the students was present to hear the judge' verdicts.

Daniel, also a defense lawyer on Friday, said his clients were considering appealing the judges' decision to the Supreme Court. (jun)