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Experts urge authorities to protect victims of recently leaked sex video
Whether the singer was in the sex video or not, anybody in the video was a victim if they did not make the video for public consumption, Maidina Rahmawati from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) insisted.
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ith a suspected leaked celebrity sex tape spreading on the internet, legal experts have called on authorities to handle such cases carefully to protect the victims and properly identify the culpable parties.
In previous such incidents the legal authorities have prosecuted the people shown in the leaked sex videos for indecency but some legal analysts have stressed that the people who are in the videos are actually the victims, not the perpetrators, especially if the videos were made as personal files.
In a recent case, at least two lawyers have reported several social media account users to the Jakarta Police for allegedly spreading an uncensored 19-second video, purportedly of a popular Indonesian singer.
One of the lawyers, Pitra Romadoni, urged the police to question the singer to determine whether she really was the person in the video. He said, however, as quoted by tribunnews.com, that whoever is in the video, whether it is the singer or not, they should not store such material even if it is for personal use because “in the event of negligence” it could be leaked and undermine public morality, especially among young people.
Other legal experts have a different perspective.
Whether the singer was in the sex video or not, anybody in the video was a victim if they did not make the video for public consumption, Maidina Rahmawati from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) insisted.
She lamented the fact that in the Indonesian legal framework, context was often missing in the policies on such issues, including the perspective of the right to privacy, providing a gap that leads to the criminalization of victims.
“Unfortunately, the authorities, even some of the relevant experts, are still looking from the perspective of the content, which attaches stigma to the people portrayed, even though they should be protected by the system,” Maidina told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Separately, ICJR executive director Erasmus Napitupulu said authorities should remember that people portrayed in sex videos made for private personal use could not be charged under the Pornography Law or the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law.
The Pornography Law states that the prohibition on making pornographic content, as well as owning or keeping the content, does not apply when it is done for private personal use, as stipulated in articles 4 and 6 of the law.
In the treatise on the discussion of the Pornography Law in the House of Representatives, what is defined as a criminal act is the creation, dissemination and use of pornographic content in the public space.
“As long as the content is for personal interests, the provisions of the law and the Constitution of Indonesia protect people’s rights,” Erasmus said.
While the purpose of Article 27 of the ITE Law was to prevent the spread of content that violated decency in the digital public domain, the article must refer to the provisions in the Criminal Code and the Pornography Law, he argued.
“For people to be charged under this article, the content must be distributed among the public with their consent,” he added.
Criminal law researcher and academic Miko Ginting called on authorities to prioritize victim protection in the latest case, especially of the woman, saying that in a patriarchal society, women had always been double victims.
A similar case in early 2011 involving the vocalist of popular rock group Peterpan, Nazriel “Ariel” Irham, should have been an important learning opportunity, Miko said.
Both Ariel and the video distributor were convicted and served time in prison. His two alleged female partners, while facing constant negative perceptions and judgment by the public, remain suspects to this day.
“It doesn’t matter whether they are public figures or not. In essence, they are victims regardless of their social status,” Miko said.
He also asked the police to carefully identify those responsible for the spread of leaked content because the Pornography Law did not include the element of intention, meaning that anyone who had a copy of such content could be charged.
The proper offense should be directed at those who deliberately distribute leaked videos without consent, with the motive of either sexual exploitation or revenge porn, he said.
