T

he Depok District Court has handed down a suspended 75-day sentence to a teenager for insulting over the Internet a woman she suspected was having an affair with her boyfriend.

The court ruled Nur Arafah, 18, had breached the defamation law by posting insulting comments on Felly Fandini’s Facebook wall.

Presiding judge Ekofa Rahayu said Tuesday the sentence had been suspended in light of the fact that the defendant had proved cooperative throughout the trial.

“However, should the defendant commit any crime within the next five months, she must serve the sentence,” Ekofa said when reading out the verdict.

He added he hoped the threat of jail time would deter Arafah from ever committing a similar offense.

Felly pressed charges against Arafah after the latter repeatedly posted insulting comments on the social networking site.

During the police investigation of the case, Arafah was also charged under the controversial information and electronic transaction law, but the charge was dropped during the trial.

Arafah said she took full responsibility for her crime, but would not stop using Facebook.

“I’ll still update my [Facebook] account, but I’ll be more careful about what comments I post,” she said.

The incident case is the latest in a string of cases that have seen people brought up on charges of defamation over the Internet.

A group of journalists recently pressed charges against actress Luna Maya after she wrote on her Twitter account that tabloid journalists were worse than prostitutes and murderers.

Last year, housewife Prita Mulyasari was charged with libel after sending an email to several friends about the poor service she had received at Omni International Hospital in Tangerang.

In addition to the criminal charges, the hospital also brought a civil lawsuit against her.

She was acquitted in the criminal trial, but lost the civil suit.

The judges in the trial ruled she had not made any libelous statements about Omni, and had only warned her friends to be wary about seeking medical treatment there.

A new member of the Press Council, Agus Sudibyo, said it was far too easy to bring libel charges against anyone, particularly since the issuance of the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law.

“The article on defamation can easily be used by anyone to bring others to court,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.