vigilant TV

Indonesian police have begun using an old law to threaten and jail critics of President Megawati Sukarnoputri. The law was unused since the reign of General Soeharto until last year, when it was used to jail a number of student activists for displaying posters at demonstrations. It is now being used against the editors of Rakyat Merdeka, a newspaper strongly critical of the government.

“Mega’s a blood sucker, Mega’s mouth smells of diesel, Mega’s more vicious than Sumanto (a celebrated Javanese cannibal)” and “Mega’s only in provincial class” have all been deemed by police to insult the President and thereby are a breach of articles 134 and 137 of the criminal code. When he published these headlines in January and February, the executive editor of sensationalist Jakarta broadsheet Rakyat Merdeka regarded them as “just normal criticism, nothing different to what we always do”. He said: “We wrote the facts; the headlines were quotes from demonstrators.” In March, police informed Mr Supratman (who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name) that the headlines breached these old provisions of the criminal code left over from Dutch colonial days, which outlaw insulting the president and vice-president. – The Age, Police enact law to gag leader’s critics.