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Police to question Indonesian editor

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Reuters - March 7, 1998

Jakarta - Police will question the chief editor of an Indonesian magazine that was rapped by the government for a "degrading" cover on President Suharto, the Jakarta Post reported on Saturday.

National Police spokesman Brigadier General Da'i Bachtiar said his office would start questioning the editor, Margiono, on Monday about the March 7 issue of the weekly magazine Detektif dan Romantika (D&R) which portrayed Suharto as the King of Spades on its cover.

"Margiono will be summoned as a suspect in a case of alleged defamation against the president. The cover of his magazine has allegedly violated Articles 134, 136 and 137 of the Criminal Code on defaming the head of the state," the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying.

Indonesia is in the midst of meetings of its highest government body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), that will culminate in presidential elections next Wednesday. Suharto is expected to be re-elected for a seventh five-year term.

Earlier this week, Information Minister Hartono slammed the magazine cover, saying, "In my opinion it is very degrading because Suharto is not a king and we do not have a kingdom here."

Director General of Press and Graphics H. Dailami also weighed in, saying the cover and reporting of the magazine had misled readers.

"Portraying the president on a game card...suggests that Bapak Suharto becomes president because he was treated as a king, whilst (in reality) he was elected as president through a constitutional mechanism," Dailami said in a statement to D&R's Margiono, the newspaper reported. Meanwhile, the government-sanctioned Indonesia Journalists Association has suspended Margiono from the association for two years.

Accordingly, the magazine would have to appoint a new editor, the official Antara news agency quoted association chairman Sofyan Lubis as saying.

Suharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana has said her family did not intend to sue the magazine.

In June 1994, Suharto banned three weeklies – Tempo, Detik and Editor – after they gave extensive coverage to an internal cabinet row between Finance Minister Mar'ie Muhammad and Research and Technology Minister Jusuf Habibie over the purchase of second-hand German warships.

Habibie is expected to be elected vice-president next week.

A number of D&R staff formerly worked on Tempo magazine, which had won a wide following for its reporting.

[An article in the independent news service SiaR dated March 6, said that in Medan, Bandung, Surabaya and Yogyakarta, copies (if they could be found) were selling for 30,000 to 50,000 Rupiah. SiaR also reported that at the prestigious Hotel Indonesia in Central Jakarta, it was selling for as much as 100,000 Rupiah. Last year, the magazine was forced change the cover of its June 5 edition (even though it had already been printed and the cover had been advertised in a number of newspapers) which had a picture of a polling station official looking at and invalidated ballot paper. The title "Criticising the Elections" and the lead story on election fraud also had to be dumped. The Minister of Information, Hartono told the daily Suara Karya that the governemnt was "considering" revoking or suspending the magaiznes licence - James Balowski.]

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