K

orean businessman Baek Chang-hoon, or David Baek, may have fallen victim to the much-criticized 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law after the police charged him with defamation after sending a personal email to a business colleague.

He said that there was currently a travel ban imposed on him by the police. As a result, he cannot go back to his hometown of Pusan in South Korea to visit his ailing mother.

“[The email] was personal and was never intended for public use. Furthermore, I only stated facts in it. How on earth can it be called defamation? This is ridiculous,” David told The Jakarta Post during an
interview at his office on Monday.

“Right now, I just want to see my mother. My brother has said her condition is deteriorating. I haven’t seen her in around six months. I hope the police will grant me this one wish.”

David, who has lived for 20 years in Indonesia and is married to an Indonesian citizen, said that he sent an email to Taiwan-based businessman Mark Truei on Aug. 5, 2010.

In the email, David told Mark that he was in the middle of a legal case concerning embezzlement and the theft of cassava seeds from fields belonging to his company, PT IDB, in Cibadak, West Java. David warned Mark to be careful in a business deal with his former partner, identified as BD, the suspect in the theft and embezzlement case. “I only sent the email to Mark and not to anyone else,” David said.

In an interview with the Senayan tabloid on September 2010, David talked about his legal problems. This interview was later quoted by the mediaindonesia.com online news portal on Oct. 5 in the same year.

Later on Nov. 8, 2010, the Cibadak District Court convicted BD of embezzlement and sentenced him to four months’ imprisonment. “On Dec. 29, 2010, I was reported to the city police for defamation, on the basis of my personal email to Mark Truei and the news article on mediaindonesia.com,” said David.

“Funnily enough, the police never called Mark Truei or mediaindonesia.com for questioning,” he added.

The Jakarta Police’s cyber-crime detective chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Audie Latuheru said that he would do what he could to help David obtain permission to visit his mother.

“Out of humanitarian considerations, we will see what we can do to help him,” he said.