The Yogyakarta Regional Police (Polda DIY) charged Meila Nurul Fajriah as a Suspect with defamation under Article 27 Paragraph (3) on Information and Electronic Transactions Law jo Article 45 Paragraph (3) of the Information and Electronic Transactions Law. Meila, a public interest lawyer at LBH Yogyakarta, was advocating for a sexual violence case in Yogyakarta when the charge was filed. The case was first handled in April 2020, with Meila defending 30 victims of physical and online sexual violence allegedly assaulted by IM, a former Oustanding Student at Universitas Islam Indonesia.

During the advocacy process, LBH Yogyakarta, together with other organizations and UII students, opened a complaint post as a form of legal aid service provision to ensure justice for victims. As the case progressed, the increasing number of victims discovered as the case progressed required further collaboration with other civil society networks.

In 2020, IM reported 3 LBH Yogyakarta lawyers including Meila to the Yogyakarta Regional Police on charges of defamation for mentioning IM’s full name in a press release. Instead of receiving support and protection from law enforcement officials, Meila was named a suspect. During the process of handling this case, the investigators did not stand on the principle of credibility in investigations as regulated in the National Police Chief Regulation No. 15/2006 concerning the Professional Code of Ethics for Police Investigators, where investigators did not pay attention nor try to find accurate facts related to the KS case. This is despite the information by LBH Yogyakarta in which some reports had been investigated by the university, one of which was proven guilty and made the case for the Chancellor of the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) to revoke IM’s status as an Outstanding Student of UII. After the award revocation, IM also filed a lawsuit against UII via the Administrative Court of Yogyakarta. In the trial, the Chancellor of UII through the Accompaniment and Advocacy Team discovered the fact that there were at least 4 victims who were sexually assaulted by IM and their psychological conditions were impacted negatively, even to the extent of one of the victims even considered committing suicide (Pages 45-46 Decision No. 17/G/ 2020/PTUN.YK).

The decision and examination carried out by the Chancellor of UII were not used as an important consideration by the Yogyakarta Regional Police, which confirmed the fact that IM had committed acts of sexual violence. As regulated in the Joint Decree between the Minister of Communication and Information, the Attorney General and the National Police Chief regarding Guidelines for the Implementation of the 2021 Information and Electronic Transactions Law which stated that disclosing the reality or facts is not part of the offense of defamation.

The press release was issued by Meila who at the time was a public interest lawyer at LBH Yogyakarta acting as a victim advocate at the time, which mandates internal procedures within the Advocate Honorary Council for any alleged case handling errors. However, to date, Meila has never been reported to the Council nor tried for violating the Advocate’s Code of Ethics. Determining her as a suspect delegitimizes the Honorary Council’s internal procedure, as her acts defending the victim do not breach the Advocate’s Code of Ethics.

The Yogyakarta Regional Police’s decision to charge Meila as a suspect is a serious attack on women human rights defenders and/or companions of victims of sexual violence, fundamentally setting a bad precedent for all sexual violence victims in the country. The Yogyakarta Regional Police have been careless and annulled the impunity rights of advocates under Law 18/2003 of Advocates, the impunity rights of legal aid providers under Law 16/2011 on Legal Aid, and the impunity rights of victim companions under Law 12/2022 of Sexual Violence Crimes, all of which are afforded to Meila in her role as a lawyer, a provider of legal assistance and as a victim companion.

“Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) should be one of the key elements in encouraging the enforcement of human rights in society. The criminalization of WHRD shows that WHRD is still in a vulnerable position and is clearly an attempt to weaken the struggle. This illustrates that the protection of not only WHRD, but also women victims of violence, has not been fully carried out and has become the state’s concern.” Indiah Wahyu Andari, Director of Rifka Annisa Woman Crisis Center.

In addition to the vulnerability of Women Human Rights Defenders, the condition of victims of sexual violence also encounters similar challenges. Ika Agustina, Executive Director of Kalyanamitra also said that “Victims of sexual violence until now have difficulty getting access to justice due to various obstacles in the legal system in Indonesia, one of which is related to the perspective of our law enforcement officials who have not yet had a gender perspective. Reported cases of sexual violence are often considered to lack evidence and witnesses by law enforcement officials. The victim is even reported back by the perpetrator on charges of defamation. Victim advocates often also receive intimidation and terror from the perpetrators, without any protection from law enforcement institutions.”

In line with that, Dimas Bagus Arya, Coordinator of KontraS said, “The police do not side with the victims and instead become the perpetrators of harassment against the advocate profession. We can see that the Kill The Messenger pattern has reoccurred in this case, which has nullified the mentoring role played by Meila towards the victims and shifted the burden of responsibility from what should focus on sanctioning the alleged perpetrators, instead putting it on the advocates. In addition, we see that the police have flawed logic in the process of determining the suspect. The police should have stopped the case because it did not fulfill the offense of defamation because what Meila said is not an offense related to the content of insults and / or defamation if it is an assessment, opinion, evaluation result or a reality as stipulated in point C of the SKB Guidelines for ITE Law.”

“Although we are engaged in environmental issues, the case is our common issue. We regret the legal action taken by the DIY Police against Meila, what was done was to show that the law enforcement officers who should be at the forefront to protect the victims have not understood the urgency of the Sexual Violence Law”. Khalisah Khalid, representative of Greenpeace Indonesia.

In addition, Nenden Sekar Arum, Executive Director of SafeNet said that “This case shows that the rubber articles in the ITE Law are very dangerous and effective in criminalizing critical parties. We need to see article 27 paragraph 3 of the ITE Law as problematic content and how the results of the second revision of the ITE Law still do not pay attention to aspects of gender sensitivity and digital rights perspectives”.

Eni, a representative of the Purple Code Collective, also added that “The criminalization that occurred against Meila is a frightening specter for victims of sexual violence who are struggling. How could it not be because the victim’s own companion became the target of criminalization by the alleged perpetrator”.

The chairman of the LBH Indonesia Foundation, Muhamad Isnur also expressed his response regarding support for Meila, “The LBH-YLBHI family would like to thank colleagues who expressed their attitude that Meila is not alone. Meila is an advocate and implementer of legal aid, this criminalization is nullifying state efforts in law enforcement. This is not just about Meila and LBH-YLBHI, this is about all of us; the victims, survivors, families and those closest to us.”

Ultimately, this criminalization marks a step back taken by the Yogyakarta Regional Police amidst the nationwide commitment to support victims of sexual violence and fight against the culture and acts of sexual violence by anyone as outlined in Law 12/2022 of Sexual Violence Crimes. Instead of being the front guard institution in implementing the Sexual Violence Crimes Law, the counterproductive action that the Yogyakarta Regional Police chose was to protect the perpetrator and criminalize the victim’s companion.