The editor of a leading Indonesian magazine was sentenced to jail yesterday in a high profile libel case that rights groups say represents a setback for press freedoms and the country's emerging democracy.
Tempo magazine editor Bambang Harimurty was found guilty of libeling a prominent businessman and sentenced to one year after an earlier ruling which cleared two Tempo reporters of libel but said their story was defamatory.
The sentence was greeted with derisive jeers in the central Jakarta district court and condemned by journalists who say the case should have been tried using Indonesia's softer press laws rather than its criminal code.
Speaking after the verdict, Harimurty -- who remains free pending an appeal -- said the decision marked a dark day for Indonesia's press, which has only recently emerged from years of censorship under former dictator Suharto.
"I think this verdict is an extraordinarily strong attack on press freedom. I am especially worried that ... other editors, will become scared and your news reports will be censored because they are afraid to go to jail.
"I hope my friends, all other chief editors, will not worry. We will continue our fight and we should not support a government that supports the criminalization of the press," he said.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
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