Police have summoned representatives of daily newspapers Kompas and Seputar Indonesia to be questioned on news items related to alleged bribery mastermind Anggodo Widjojo.
The police, acting on a defamation complaint filed by Anggodo, stunned the public, which was still waiting for the President’s decision on the recommendations of his fact-finding team. The team was tasked with investigating a corruption scandal involving the businessman.
The summons, dated Nov. 18 and signed by the National Police director for economic and special crimes, Sr. Comr. Raja Erizman, ordered representatives from Kompas and Seputar Indonesia to come in for questioning at 10 a.m. Friday.
“We have been asked to explain the transcript of the wiretapped conversations between Anggodo and others that was played during a Constitutional Court hearing on Nov. 3,” Kompas managing editor Budiman Tanuredja said Thursday.
He added he would represent Kompas at Friday’s questioning.
Meanwhile, Seputar Indonesia will be represented by its chief editor, Nevy Hetharia.
National Police deputy chief detective Insp. Gen. Dikdik Mulyana said the editors would only be questioned as witnesses.
“We need them to give clarification on where they found [the transcript of Anggodo and some public officials],” he said as quoted by detik.com.
Copies of the transcript were made available at the Constitutional Court when it aired the recordings to the public on Nov. 3. The two dailies were among those that published the transcript the following day; parts of it had been leaked earlier.
The summons is based on a report filed by Anggodo and his lawyer Bonaran Situmeang on alleged libel and abuse of power and wiretapping using electronic devices as regulated by the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law.
In the recordings presented by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to the Constitutional Court, Anggodo was allegedly overheard speaking with a number of high-ranking officers from the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office in a possible plot to frame KPK deputies Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah.
The police have put Anggodo under its protection despite him publicly admitting to having attempted to bribe KPK leaders.
The summons instantly sparked criticism from the public, who accused the police of using this pretext to gag the media.
“This is an irony, it’s tragic. I don’t see enough reason to do this,” anticorruption activist Todung Mulya Lubis told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Todung, who was also a fact-finding team member, said such a summons would only intimidate and threaten the media.
“I call on Kompas and Seputar Indonesia as well as other media not to be afraid and not to stop the coverage of the judicial mafia,” he said.
Zainal Arifin Mochtar from Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Anticorruption Studies said the police had acted blindly in the issue.
“They face one problem by creating another one.,” he said.
Febri Diansyah from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said this would only give a bad signal for democracy in Indonesia.
“This is a signal of a growing authoritarianism. Anyone who has a problem with the press should solve it through the Press Council.”
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