Indonesia: NGO staff defamation case completed, moved to trial (Update)
Event- Country
- Indonesia
- Initial Date
- Feb 3, 2023
- Event Description
The DKI Jakarta High Prosecutor's Office stated that the case of defamation of the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Panjaitan had been declared complete. The case ensnared two human rights activists, Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar, as suspects.
"It's already P21, dated February 3, 2023," said Head of Legal Information Section for the DKI Prosecutor's Office Ade Sofyansyah, Monday, February 20, 2023.
P21 is a code in the world of law which means that the prosecutor has considered the case file to be complete. Ade said the prosecutor's office was ready for the second phase of the suspect transfer. "The DKI Prosecutor's Office is ready for stage 2," said Ade.
This case began with a video uploaded on Haris Azhar's YouTube entitled "There is Lord Luhut Behind the Economic Relations-Military Ops Intan Jaya General BIN Also Exists" on August 20, 2021. The video shows a conversation between Fatia and Haris about the results of a research entitled "Economy- The Politics of Military Deployment in Papua: The Intan Jaya Case".
The report states that the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Panjaitan still owns shares in the Toba Sejahtra Group company. The Toba Sejahtra Group, through its subsidiary, PT Tobacom Del Mandiri, is suspected of embracing a portion of PTMQ's shares. West Wits Mining as PTMQ shareholder shares shares with Tobacom in the Derewo River Gold Project.
Not accepting his name being associated with a mine in Papua, Luhut through his subordinates sent a subpoena to Fatia and Haris. The subpoena led to a report to Polda Metro Jaya. Polda investigators named Haris and Fatia suspects of defamation in March 2022.
In his report, Luhut considered the statements of the two activists to be slander and fake news. Luhut also plans to sue the two for Rp 100 billion.
Luhut's move to police Fatia and Haris was flooded with criticism. Andalas University constitutional law expert, Feri Amsari, for example, considers that Luhut violated at least two laws when reporting. According to him, as a state administrator Luhut cannot report on people who give criticism or input to the government.
"There is a law order that states administrators are not allowed to report citizens participating in providing input," he said in a virtual IM57+ Institute discussion, Saturday, March 26, 2022.
Feri also stated that the public's right to express opinions was protected by article 28 of the 1945 Constitution. Article 28 F of the 1945 Constitution also gave the public the right to manage the information to be conveyed.
- Impact of Event
- 2
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Woman
- Violation
- Judicial Harassment
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of expression
- Online
- Freedom of expression
- HRD
- NGO staff
- WHRD
- Perpetrator-State
- Judiciary
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: -6.179617365070361
Longitude: 106.81734652285607
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 3 February 2023, On 13 March 2022, Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar, NGO workers, had the investigation on their alleged defamation charges completed by the police, and the case was set to trial by the prosecutor for disclosing the link between high ranking officials and detrimental mining operations in Jakarta, Indonesia.