M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – An activist from the radical group Islamic Youth Movement (GPI) was on trial on Monday for allegedly insulting President Megawati Soekarnoputri during an antigovernment protest in mid-February.
The defendant, M. Iqbal Siregar, was charged with violating Article 134 of the Criminal Code, which relates to the intentional insult of the president or vice president, and carries a maximum penalty of six year's imprisonment. He was also accused of violating Article 137 (1) on publicizing such behavior, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail.
The article is known here as a pasal karet (catchall article), because in the past, the New Order regime drew upon it to suppress its political opponents.
The indictment, read by chief prosecutor Arnold Angkouw, said that during an antigovernment protest on January 15, the defendant carried a picture of Megawati that had black tape over her eyes and the words "Hunted by the public" imprinted on top.
"He then showed the picture to the crowd, saying, 'this is the President who has disappointed citizens'," Arnold said, adding that the defendant then threw the pictures onto busy Jl. Merdeka Utara, Central Jakarta, for them to be run over by vehicles. The chief prosecutor said that such an act constituted an intentional insult of the President.
Iqbal carried out the act during a protest against a number of Megawati administration policies, which, he said, had added to the plight of the populace. The rally was also attended by other groups, including the Islamic Students Association (HMI), the Alliance Against Mega (ATM) and the Jakarta Student Executive Bodies (BEM).
The trial for Iqbal was the third to be held in the country during Megawati's term as president. Late last year, Muzakkir and Nanang Mamija, respectively from the Populist Youth Movement (GPK) and the National Farmers Federation (STN), were sentenced to one year in prison after being proven guilty of stamping on pictures of Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz.
Currently, the trials of three student activists, Rico Marbun, Fathul Nugroho and Ardy Purnawanani, accused of insulting state leaders, are still under way.
Moments before presiding judge Cornel Sianturi concluded the hearing, the defendants' lawyer, Taufik Basari, said that the team of advocates would submit a case for the defense. The judge later agreed that it could be heard on Thursday.
After the hearing was over, Iqbal – who had been in custody for 80 days, the last time in Salemba prison, Central Jakarta – said that his trial was but one example of how the Megawati administration was following the path of the authoritarian regime of former president Soeharto in using the catchall article to curb protests against his government.
"These articles [134 and 137] will simply kill off the country's burgeoning democracy," Iqbal said. Citing that the trial could become a bad precedent for the prodemocracy movement in the future, he said: "If the articles are strictly applied, thousands of our young, opposed to government policy, will crowd the country's prisons." Reiterating Iqbal's statement, Taufik said that the use of catchall articles against political activists showed that the Megawati administration was indeed a repressive regime.