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Police name two new suspects in leaked celebrity sex tape case
The Jakarta Police have named a woman and a man suspects in a leaked celebrity sex tape case for allegedly violating the 2008 Pornography Law amid calls from activists over privacy protection.
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T
he Jakarta Police have named a woman and a man suspects in a leaked celebrity sex tape case for allegedly violating the 2008 Pornography Law amid calls from activists over privacy protection.
The woman, identified only as GA and the man, identified as MYD, were named suspects on Tuesday, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Cmr. Yusri Yunus said.
“Based on the case exposé we conducted yesterday [Monday] we escalated her status from witness to suspect,” he said on Tuesday as reported by tribunnews.com.
GA was previously questioned twice as a witness in the case as the police suspected her to be the person in the video that went viral on social media last month.
MYD was alleged to be the man in the video.
Yusri said that in their separate questionings, GA and MYD admitted to the police that they were the people in the video.
“They admitted that they were indeed the people in the video that was circulating in social media,” he added.
Both GA and MYD were charged under articles 4, 29 and 8 of the controversial 2008 Pornography Law, which prohibits people from producing, trading, spreading and showcasing pornographic materials. They face a maximum of 12 years' imprisonment, Yusri added.
Read also: Experts urge authorities to protect victims of recently leaked sex video
Last month, the police also named two suspects in the case, identified only as PP and MN, for allegedly spreading the video on social media platforms.
Yusri said the investigators had completed the dossiers requested by the prosecutors to bring the case to court.
Legal experts have called on authorities to handle leaked celebrity sex tape cases carefully as similar incidents showed that the people in the videos are actually the victims, not the perpetrators, especially if the videos were made as personal files.
Maidina Rahmawati of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) said anybody in a leaked sex video was a victim if they did not intend the video for public consumption.
She said leaked sex tape cases often missed context in the Indonesian legal framework, such as the perspective of the right to privacy that often led to criminalization of victims.
She further argued that if the content was meant for personal interest, the makers of the video could not be legally charged.
“Investigators should understand that if GA and MYD did not mean for the video to spread to the public for commercial purposes, then they are victims that must be protected,” Maidina said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the investigation should focus on the parties behind the distribution of the video. (ami)
