T

he Jakarta Police said Monday that the rape allegations from a University of Indonesia (UI) student implicating noted poet Sitok Srengenge would be dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said that during the investigation the police had failed to collect any witnesses or expert-witness statements to support the accusation.

'€œWe have questioned a lot of people, but their statements were not enough to support the victim,'€ Rikwanto told reporters at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Monday.

Rikwanto said that the victim had promised to hand over her phone, which contained messages from Sitok, to the police as evidence. However, Rikwanto said that a month had passed and the victim had not yet submitted it.

Sitok was reported to the police in December by a 21-year-old student, whom the poet had promised to assist with her thesis.

The police then examined the report in relation to Article 335 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on '€œunpleasant conduct'€, but did not apply the articles on rape because the case did not involve physical abuse.

Less than a month after the police report was filed, two other girls came forward with similar accusations implicating Sitok.

The victim'€™s lawyer, Iwan Pangka, said that he had been fighting for the woman'€™s rights for more than seven months and would be upset if the police dropped the case.

He said that he would talk with the related investigators and ask them to dig further before terminating the investigation.

'€œAfter the result of the presidential election is announced on Tuesday we will go to the investigators and talk to them. We are ready to fight for the victim,'€ Iwan told The Jakarta Post, adding that he and a number of UI lecturers also planned to hold a public seminar related to the case.

Meanwhile, Wulan Danoekoesoemo, founder of the sexual violence survivor circle Lentera Indonesia said that law enforcement was clearly no deterrent to perpetrators of such cases.

'€œI can'€™t imagine how the victim is feeling [...] She has had to reveal her identity and to get through a long investigation and now is faced with the possibility that her case will be dropped,'€ she said.

Wulan emphasized that if the case was dropped, the police would be sending the message that sexual harassment cases were not a priority.

'€œAnother sexual assault victim has been failed,'€ she said. (idb)