While activists welcomed the decision on Thursday to grant amnesty to Saiful, they emphasized that others were still suffering under the ITE Law, particularly because articles on online defamation were increasingly being used to punish people for expressing their opinions.

“Today [Thursday], Saiful Mahdi was given amnesty by the President, but there are a lot of victims who are still waiting [for a pardon],” ITE Law Victims Community (PAKU ITE) chairman Muhammad Arsyad told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

“We hope the government and the House will amend the problematic articles in the ITE Law as soon as possible, because we don’t want to request presidential amnesty for every ITE Law case.”

From 2016 to 2020, the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) recorded 786 cases involving the law, with 88 percent of the those charged ending up behind bars, Reuters reported.

Gadjah Mada University (UGM) constitutional law lecturer Zainal Arifin Mochtar also urged the government to revise the ITE Law, adding that more people would end up seeking amnesty if the controversial articles were left intact.

“If this goes on, the President will be forced to intervene [in ITE Law cases], as was seen in the Baiq Nuril case, [the Saiful] case and possibly other cases,” said Zainal on Wednesday.

Zainal was referring to the presidential amnesty granted to Baiq Nuril, a former school teacher from Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, who was convicted of defaming her alleged sexual harasser, the then-principal of her school, by circulating details of a recorded call in which he discussed an affair he had had with another woman.

She reportedly recorded the call as evidence, and her colleagues leaked the details to the public.

A district court acquitted Baiq of all charges in 2017, but a year later, following an appeal filed by prosecutors, the Supreme Court found her guilty of circulating a “lewd recording”. She also lost a review of her case at the Supreme Court before Jokowi granted her amnesty in 2019.

Saiful is the second person to have been granted amnesty by President Jokowi in an online defamation case, after Baiq.

Saiful was named a suspect in September 2019 after he criticized a test for the university’s School of Engineering in a WhatApp chat group. He was reported to the police by the dean of the university’s School of Engineering, who was not part of the chat group.

In its verdict from April of last year, the Banda Aceh District Court sentenced Saiful to three months in prison and ordered him to pay a Rp 10 million fine or face an additional month in prison. Saiful later filed an appeal against the verdict with the Banda Aceh High Court, which rejected the petition.

He then filed a cassation plea with the Supreme Court, which rejected the plea and upheld the lower court’s ruling. Saiful reported to the Banda Aceh Prosecutors' Office on Sept. 2 to begin his prison sentence. 

On Thursday, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD welcomed the House’s decision and said the President would soon issue a decree formalizing Saiful’s amnesty.

He added that plans to amend the ITE Law had been included in the House’s National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) for this year and that he expected lawmakers to discuss proposed changes to the law in the coming months.

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