In Indonesia, one of the country's most respected journalists and intellectuals, Tempo-media group co-founder Gunawan Mohamad, has had his Jakarta home confiscated by the courts....Simultaneous moves to seize a key Tempo office have so far failed on grounds that the company doesn't own the building concerned. The court's actions stem from a protracted legal battle with a controversial, but well connected businessman who's been accused of trying to stifle press freedom.
Presenter/Interviewer: Tom Fayle
Speakers: Ati Nurbaiti, head of Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists; veteran lawyer Hotma Sitompul; Todong Mulya Lubis, lead lawyer for the Tempo defence.
Fayle: Tempo has been at the forefront of investigative journalism and the defence of human rights in Indonesia for decades ... suffering regular harassment and years of closure under the former Suharto regime.
Suharto's New Order Government may no longer be in power, but the Indonesian media continues to face attack from a variety of sources ... sometimes physical, sometimes legal, sometimes both.
Tempo's latest troubles began earlier this year, when it ran an article suggesting a link between a devastating Jakarta market fire and prominent real estate developer and banker Tomy Winata.
The businessman vigorously denied the allegation, and a short time later hundreds of people claiming to be his supporters ransacked one of Tempo's offices and beat up a number of its journalists as police watched on.
Once again, Tomy Winata denied any involvement ... and subsequently launched defamation action against Tempo, demanding an apology and millliions of dollars in damages.
Now in an move described by Tempo's legal team as judicial overkill, the court has slapped a preventative seizure ... or attachment order on Gunawan Mohamad's Jakarta home.
Todong: This is unprecedented. Gunawan Mohamad is not a corrupt guy. He's not a criminal, he's not a convict. So I think the court has overdone it when it comes to Gunawan Mohamad.
Fayle: Todong Mulya Lubis is lead lawyer for the Tempo defence.
Todong: The judiciary is not 100 per cent independent here. The judiciary has always been intefered with by what I call invisible hands. I cannot accuse anyone of intervening, but it's very much felt that the court has been acting in line with the plaintiff's side.
Fayle: He says the Tempo case, together with an number of other legal actions againt high profile media outlets, is part of a systematic attempt to bring Indonesia's sometimes unruly post -Suharto press to heel.
Todong: I'm not saying that the media has not made any mistakes. They probably did. But as long as there is no malicious intent, and as long as there is no reckless disregard on the part of the media ... this is not a crime in itself.
Fayle: The view from the other side of the court room battle is understandably different. Describing himself as Tomy Winata's friend, veteran lawyer Hotma Sitompul has been involved in a series of well-publicised cases, involving senior politicians and high ranking miltary officers. He says Tomy Winata was left with no option but to use the courts to defend his reputation after Tempo refused to apologise.
Hotma: The question is, cannot the press be wrong? Are they always in the right? Do they ever harm people? And if the press harm people, humiliate them ... what can you do? Do you burn their offices? You cannot do that. You have to go to the court. Then after Tomy Winata went to the court ... everbody got angry. You should obey the court.
Fayle: Hotma Sitompul says Tomy Winata is determined to teach the press a lesson, to force them to act in a more "responsible" manner.
Hotma: I agree with people like Tomy Winata, who lets people know there is a bad press. We are free, the press is free ... but still they have to be responsible. We talk about proof, if you are against somebody, you have to prove it.
Fayle: Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists, while critical of the lawsuit, says it looks like the media will have to learn to live with more and more litigation ... and to push hard for such cases to be funelled through the post-suharto press law rather than through the criminal code, as in the winata action. Alliance head, Ati Nurbaiti.
Nurbaiti: We will still have to campaign on the removal of colonial era laws, because these clauses on defamation were invented to crush the independence movement and now we are using it against our own people. Of course, the defamation laws are useful for ordinary, for regular people but dangerous when used by the more powerful. We just thought the police would refer people to the press law in cases of the press, which of course has not happened, and that's where we think we have failed. We haven't campaigned for the press law hard enough.