"Walls remind me of the prison..."
"Walls remind me of the prison..."
Sari P. Setiogi
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Being acquitted from all charges Thursday by the Central
Jakarta District court was a big relief for Tempo news magazine
journalist, Ahmad Taufik.
His family already brought him a black plastic bucket, filled
with a flip-flop, Thursday's edition of Tempo newspaper, a sarong
and toothbrush.
"Just in case I have to go to the jail..." Taufik told The
Jakarta Post after the verdict reading. Later, he told the Post
that he already had contacted his old friends at the Cipinang
prison, East Jakarta, as well.
"Personally, I am happy that I do not have to be in prison
again," said Taufik. Taufik was jailed back in 1995 over articles
he made for an internal bulletin of the Alliance of Independent
Journalists (AJI).
Being jailed for two years and seven months left him with an
on-and-off pain on his left leg. "It was very cold at the prison
as there was no bed. Now, I still feel my leg aching sometimes,
especially when I climb the stairs," said Taufik.
Taufik was detained in several different prisons: Salemba,
Central Jakarta; Cipinang, East Jakarta; Cirebon, West Java and
Kuningan, West Java.
"My worst was when I was under the police detention. It was my
very first experience dealing with such thing... My eldest son
was only three days at that time," he said, wandering a while.
Taufik has two sons from his marriage with a Surabaya-born
woman, Syafa Elliyin. Ali Anzi Muntazhar is now nine years old
and Muhammad Khatami Aji is six years old.
The family are now planning to place their new home in
Sawangan, Bogor, before the coming month of fasting. "It is a
bamboo house. I prefer bamboo. I don't like walls. They remind me
of the prison..." said Taufik.
His humorous side belies such trauma. In earlier hearings he
presented a number of CDs of a favorite cartoon character, the
journalist Tintin, to the panel of judges.
However, despite Taufik was acquitted this time, he said he
was not fully satisfied with the judges ruling that Thursday.
"The judges ruling still declared me guilty for writing a
lie," the 39-year old man told the Post on an interview at his
office in Proklamasi, Central Jakarta.
Therefore, his chief editor, Bambang Harymurti, was sentenced
for one year in prison in a bid to account for the article "Is
Tomy in 'Tenabang'?" published in Tempo March 3-9, 2003.
The article cited allegations that prominent businessman Tomy
Winata stood for profit from a fire at the Tanah Abang textile
market, Central Jakarta.
Tomy later sued the magazine for defaming his name, despite it
included denials of the allegations from the businessman.
"I saw a proposal which cited Tomy's name from a source. It
was a proposal to renovate the Tanah Abang market and it was
proposed three months before the fire razed the market," he said.
According to Taufik, a company owned by Tomy, Artha Graha, was
printed in the document as the financial sponsor.
However, Taufik was not allowed to copy the document for
confidential matter. "We already tried to confirm even to Tomy
himself. He denied. And we wrote that down," he said.
That was where the story began.
Taufik said he regretted the judges decision to sentence his
chief editor. "It was a set back to our press freedom. The
arguments of the judges were not logic. On my case, they used the
press law, but they did not use it on Bambang."
Taufik, a graduate from the Faculty of Law of the Bandung
Islamic University, Bandung, understood very well the legal
confusion at the trial.
"When I first entered the Faculty of Law, my mother told me
not to be a judge, prosecutor or lawyer. She said, those
professions had their one leg in the hell. They were playing with
one's fate," said Taufik.