AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Wednesday February 19, 2003
Police summon editor over article allegedly insulting Megawati:
lawyer
JAKARTA - Indonesian police have summoned an editor from a popular newspaper
over an article that allegedly insulted President Megawati Sukarnoputri, a lawyer said
Wednesday.
Supratman, one of the executive editors with the Rakyat Merdeka daily, will be
questioned in relation to an article in the newspaper, his lawyer Taufik Basari was
quoted by the Detikcom news portal as saying.
Basari said he did not know which article the police referred to.
Supratman appeared at Jakarta police headquarters on Wednesday but had yet to be
questioned. "We were just having conversations," Basari said.
The lawyer said Supratman had earlier been summoned for questioning on February
10 but he could not attend.
Officers at Jakarta police headquarters said they were not aware of the summons.
Rakyat Merdeka is popular for its tabloid-style journalism. The paper regularly
publishes hilarious, sometimes cynical, caricatures and stories criticizing politicians.
Insulting the president or vice-president is a criminal offence, but until last year there
had been no prosecutions since the fall of longtime autocratic president Suharto in
May 1998.
In October last year two protesters were jailed for a year in Jakarta for defacing a
portrait of Megawati.
Last month a female activist in Aceh province was sentenced to six months in prison
for defaming Megawati and Vice-President Hamzah Haz. She had drawn a cross over
their pictures. tn/sm/hw
Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved.
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