Ismira Lutfia – The threat of going to jail or under-going a lengthy prosecution under the country's criminal-defamation laws may be pushing journalists to censor themselves.

Margiyono, an advocacy coordinator for the Alliance of Independent Journalists, told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday that the possibility of facing charges often led journalists to withhold "sensitive information."

"This kind of self-censorship normally is caused by the chilling effect of being prone to prosecution on defamation charges."

He said this failure to report information had nothing to do with journalists' conformity to general ethics, public or professional interests or company policies. "Self-censorship usually has a negative connotation," he said.

A recently released report on the consequences of the country's criminal defamation laws from US-based Human Rights Watch said media reports that are "politically sensitive or that offend the subject of the report" could result in charges.

The HRW report cited three such cases, including that of Jakarta Globe reporter Camelia Pasandaran, who briefly faced charges in April 2009 when she reported allegations of vote-buying against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son, Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, when he was running for a seat at the House of Representatives.

Agus Sudibyo, head of public complaints and ethics enforcement at the Press Council, said that adherence to the code of ethics should be sufficient to safeguard journalists from threats of defamation charges.

But the 91-page HRW report said the 1999 Press Law, aimed at protecting journalists from libel charges, "is insufficient to protect them. As a result, despite parliament's intention to encourage media freedom, journalists and editors remain exposed to the risks of criminalization for doing their work."

Margiyono said this was because the burden of facing libel charges lay on "the journalist as an individual, not the media organization where he or she is employed."

HRW has urged lawmakers to repeal the criminal-defamation laws and "replace them with civil defamation provisions that contain adequate safeguards to protect freedom of expression from unnecessary limitations."

Andreas Harsono, Indonesian coordinator for Human Rights Watch and a former journalist, told the Globe that instead of using criminal-defamation provisions, most countries used civil procedures to handle slander or libel cases. Under civil regulations, the defamed parties, he said, could seek compensation for any damage to their reputations.

Besides, Margiyono said criminal-defamation cases were difficult to prove because they stemmed from "judgments of words instead of facts."

Margiyono also alleged that authorities were often biased in handling libel cases, especially if the plaintiffs were journalists or a marginalized group. "The police only follow up on powerful people's cases," he said.

Andreas said verification of either civil or criminal libel charges was difficult and time-consuming. For instance, Jupriadi Asmaradhana, a freelance journalist in Makassar, South Sulawesi, who was acquitted in September of a defamation charge filed by a former South Sulawesi Police chief, Insp. Gen. Sisno Adiwinoto, told the Globe that he had to go through 23 trials over about two years.

Andreas said that even if civil charges were filed, it would still be lengthy and divert the focus of police from handling real criminal cases.

But there may be hope. According to Andreas, Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, the director general for human rights at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, welcomed the HRW's report and its recommendations to repeal current defamation provisions and place them in a civil regime.