'Tempo' editor gets a year

'Tempo' editor gets a year

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court found Tempo weekly guilty on
Thursday of publishing false material and libel, and sentenced
chief editor Bambang Harymurti to a suspended one-year jail term.
The court, however, acquitted the journalists who wrote the
article in question.

The differing verdicts was the result of the judges decision
to take into consideration only certain aspects of the Press Law
in determining who should be held accountable in respect of the
libel complaint filed by well-connected businessman Tomy Winata.

"As regards press freedom, which is a vital ingredient of
democracy, the court has taken into consideration Law No. 40/1999
on the press as the principal legislation covering all matters
concerning the media," presiding judge Suripto said.

"However, as the court has also evidence from expert witnesses
to the effect that this legislation does not deal specifically
about misleading information and libel, the court must also refer
to other legislation."

Defendants Bambang, Ahmad Taufik and Teuku Iskandar Ali were
prosecuted for violating Article 14 of Law No. 1/1946 on
publishing false material that could lead to public unrest, as
well as Articles 310 and 311 of the Criminal Code on defamation.

Titled Is Tomy in Tenabang?, the article in question, which
was published in the weekly's March 3-9, 2003 edition, referred
to Tomy as a "big scavenger" and insinuated that he was involved
in the fire that gutted the Tanah Abang textile market on Feb.
19, 2003, so as to allow him to press ahead with a redevelopment
project.

Taking turns reading the verdict with judicial panel members
Kusriyanto and Ridwan Mansyur, Suripto explained that the
defendants could not provide conclusive proof that there had in
fact been a redevelopment plan as stated in the article, while
all of the relevant city officials denied that there was any such
plan.

Suripto further said that the defendants had also incited
public unrest as "they should have known that the an article
would have had an effect on the feelings of the fire victims",
and had also failed to "conclusively prove that Tomy was a
scavenger, as stated."

The judges decided that Taufik and Iskandar could not be held
liable, however, as under Articles 12 and 18 of the Press Law,
the consequences of any violations committed by a media outlet
had to be borne by its chief editor.

Speaking after the trial, Tempo lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis said
that his clients would file an appeal, even for Ahmad and
Iskandar, as the court had also found them guilty.

"We will appeal as the judges did not entirely base their
verdicts on the Press Law or the journalist code of ethics," he
said. "The defendants should have been cleared of all charges as
the article adhered to all the basic principles of journalism."

The prosecutors also said they would consider an appeal as the
verdict was more lenient than the two-year prison terms they had
sought against each of the defendants.

Bambang expressed the hope that the high court would create a
similar precedent in favor of press freedom as the United States
Supreme Court had done when it overturned a guilty verdict
against New York Times journalists in 1964.