Trial of Indonesian editor
AP reports on the trial of Indonesian newspaper editor Rakyat Merdeka. He faces a possible 6 year jail term for insulting President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
``Does this show proper manners? Is this polite?’’ the judge asks, holding up a banner headline that reads, ``Mega’s Mouth Reeks of Fuel.’’Supratman – the 34-year-old editor of the tabloid-style workingman’s paper Rakyat Merdeka – faces a six-year jail term on criminal charges of ``insulting’’ the president under an old Dutch colonial law.
[...]
``I’m ready to go to jail,’’ Supratman told The Associated Press inside the bustling newsroom of the paper, which in Indonesian language means Free People. ``This is a political trial.’’
Supratman is quick to point out, too that the law used against him was once used to pursue against Megawati’s own father Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president.
``Imagine the irony!’’ Supratman says. ``She ought to remember that her father was taken to court with the same law.’’
[...]
Supratman fears that the government will try to make him an example so that other journalists will think twice before publishing similar fare. Indonesian prisons are notoriously brutal, and six years in one could serve as a mighty deterrent.
[...]
That people in a democracy shouldn’t be jailed for criticizing their leaders is a notion that has yet to fully take root in Indonesia.
A Muslim activist was recently jailed for five months after holding up a poster of Megawati, a black strip superimposed over her eyes, with a caption reading, ``Wanted by the people.’’
Several other protesters have also been jailed for criticizing the president.
– AP, Editor’s Trial Tests Indonesian Freedoms.