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Minister deplores cops' summons of journalists
Despite protests from various circles, including a Cabinet member and media workers, and despite an initial cancellation, the National Police on Friday questioned editors of two national daily newspapers, Kompas and Seputar Indonesia (Sindo)
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D
espite protests from various circles, including a Cabinet member and media workers, and despite an initial cancellation, the National Police on Friday questioned editors of two national daily newspapers, Kompas and Seputar Indonesia (Sindo).
On Thursday, the police had summoned the editors, apparently because their newspapers had published transcripts of taped conversations between an alleged criminal case-broker with law enforcers.
Kompas managing editor Budiman Tanuredja said the police had initially verbally canceled the summons on Thursday evening, but then on Friday morning insisted on going ahead with the questioning. Budiman also decided to go to the National Police headquarters to clarify the case.
"*The National Police* asked six questions, five of which were about my background. It was not until the sixth question that they started to ask about the transcript of the wiretapped conversations between Anggodo *Widjojo* and others that had been played during a Constitutional Court hearing *on Nov. 3*," Budiman told The Jakarta Post after the questioning.
Budiman described the session as more like an interview than an interrogation. The police insisted that the aim of the meeting with the two editors was merely to gather more information about the Anggodo case.
"Soon we want to formulate *charges* to make Anggodo a sus-pect to accommodate public demand," National Police spokes-man Ins. Gen. Nanan Sukarna said Friday.
The wiretapped recording overheard a conversation between Anggodo and several senior police officers and officials from the Attorney General's Office (AGO).
The conversations discussed a suspected conspiracy to criminalize Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputies Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah.
Budiman's statement was supported by Seputar Indonesia managing editor Nevy Hetharia.
"Basically there was only one question, that was whether it was true that Sindo had published the wiretapped conversations," Nevy said as quoted by detik.com.
A dozen journalists calling themselves a coalition against the criminalization of the press protested in front of the police headquarters, voicing their concerns over the summons, saying it was a form of intimidation.
Communications and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring also criticized the police.
"This is no longer the era to ban *the press*," Tifatul said as quoted by detik.com.
Former president Megawati Soekarnoputri also criticized the police.
"When I was a president I never summoned anyone from the media".
Al Araf from the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor, Imparsial, described the police questioning as going against press freedom, which is guaranteed in the 2008 Freedom of Information Law and the 1999 Press Law.
"The summoning was really inappropriate and this is just like what the New Order *Soeharto* regime did," Al Araf told the Post.
Setara Institute chairman Hendardi said the summons was the police's attempt to intimidate the media.
"This was really baseless because there are many ways to raise objections over a news published or aired in the media," he said.
