T

he National Police will forcibly bring in Darmawan Sepriyossa, the cofounder and editor of the Obor Rakyat tabloid, for questioning in connection with the publication'€™s allegedly libelous reports on Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) presidential candidate, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Ronny Frankie Sompie said on Tuesday that Darmawan had failed for the second time to answer a summons without giving any notification.

'€œWe will check whether he received our first and second summons. We will deliver the summons a third time and take him in for questioning,'€ Ronny said on Tuesday.

PDI-P lawyers have accused Darmawan and Obor Rakyat cofounder Setiyardi Boediono of publishing hate speech and defamation against Jokowi. The tabloid, which appears to be a smear campaign, has run accusations such as that Jokowi is a Chinese Christian and has been widely distributed to Islamic boarding schools across Java.

Setiyardi'€™s lawyer Hinca Panjaitan said that Darmawan could not answer the summons because he was traveling overseas.

Setiyardi, who came in for police questioning on Monday, said the tabloid had not published libel but merely information about Jokowi'€™s failures during his tenure as Jakarta governor.

He also accused the Press Council of violating its own procedure by ruling that Obor Rakyat constituted illegitimate, unethical journalism without seeking confirmation from the tabloid'€™s editorial staff.

Press Council member Yosep Stanley Adi Prasetyo rebuffed the claim, saying the council had enough evidence to determine the tabloid was improper.

'€œThere is no need to hear an explanation from the tabloid. It'€™s obvious that the tabloid has promoted discrimination based on ethnicity, religion and race, and failed to comply with journalistic ethics by running imbalanced reports,'€ he said on Tuesday.

Stanley added that the Obor Rakyat was not run by a legitimate company, as mandated by the Press Council.

Setiyardi, who is also an assistant to special presidential staff in the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration, is expected to meet with the Press Council next week to defend the tabloid'€™s legitimacy.

Stanley, however, said the meeting would not sway the council'€™s decision.

'€œThey have abused freedom of the press. For them, journalists are only hired guns to steamroll their opponents,'€ he said.

In another election-related case, the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) is preparing to hand over an alleged smear campaign case involving prominent figure Wimar Witoelar to the National Police.

Earlier, the campaign of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto filed a report with Bawaslu over a picture posted on social media that it said hurt the candidate.

Wimar, once a spokesman for former president Abdurrahman '€œGus Dur'€ Wahid and a supporter of Jokowi, posted on his Twitter and Facebook accounts on June 15 an edited picture of Prabowo with Osama bin Laden, firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Ba'€™ashir, convicted terrorist Imam Samudra and leaders of Muslim-based political parties.