A Test Case for Indonesia Freedoms

For the last four months, Wayan Suardana has been jailed here on the island of Bali, accused of committing a crime he believes should not exist: insulting the president.

On New Year’s Eve, the 29-year-old student activist attended a demonstration protesting an increase in fuel prices and, according to police, burned a photograph of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He also called the president “a dog,” “a clown” and “a scoundrel,” authorities say.

For that, he faces six years in prison under a law that dates from Dutch colonial times.

Suardana, who goes by the name Gendo, says he was exercising his right of free speech when he took part in the protest. The law against insulting the president, he contends, contradicts Indonesia’s democratic spirit and should be repealed.

Last month he walked out of the courtroom during his trial to protest the government’s application of the colonial-era law.

“In a democratic country, it’s part of human rights to have freedom of speech,” Gendo said last week from a holding cell at the Denpasar courthouse while awaiting another court hearing in his trial.

For Indonesia, the case is a test of the limits of its fledgling democracy under its first popularly elected president.

Yudhoyono won by a landslide last September in the largest direct presidential election the world has seen. Presidential spokesman Andi Malarangeng said the president supported the public’s right to free speech but had no inclination to intervene in Gendo’s case or change the law being used to prosecute the activist.

“Obviously, he respects democracy,” Malarangeng said. “He is committed to democracy and the process of democracy in Indonesia. Protests, demonstrations and others are part of democracy. However, it has to be in line with the law and the prevailing ethics.”

The law, used against Indonesian nationalists before independence, was retained by Indonesia’s post-colonial leaders in 1946. Since the fall of President Suharto’s military regime in 1998, at least nine protesters have been convicted under the law and sentenced to terms ranging from six months to a year in jail.

Prosecutor Suparta Jaya, who is handling the case against Gendo, said the law was necessary to uphold Indonesia’s moral standards and protect the dignity of the presidency. The right to free speech does not include the right to make derogatory remarks about the nation’s leader, he said.

“If we don’t have the law, people will do whatever they want to the institution of the president,” said Jaya, who successfully prosecuted several suspects in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing.

Gendo and fellow students held their demonstration Dec. 31 to protest the president’s decision to reduce government fuel subsidies by 29%. Many economists believe that eliminating the subsidies is essential to the country’s economic recovery, but the move is highly unpopular with the public, which must bear the brunt of price hikes without pay raises to offset the higher costs.

Fuel prices have long been a political land mine in Indonesia. Demonstrations against rising gasoline prices contributed to Suharto’s downfall in 1998. President Megawati Sukarnoputri increased fuel prices in 2003 but backed down in the face of mounting student protests.

Since December, students have staged protests all over the country, but Yudhoyono has held firm. Even with the 29% increase, the price of gas in Indonesia remains low compared with that in other parts of the world. Before the price increase, a gallon of gasoline cost about 70 cents. Now it costs about 95 cents.

The prosecution says police have a videotape of the Denpasar protest showing Gendo calling the president names and setting fire to his photo.

Gendo, who is represented by 27 attorneys attracted by the high-profile case, does not deny the accusation but is focusing his defense on what he views as the unjust nature of the law.

Wearing a white flower petal behind each ear for his court appearance, he argued that the prosecution had to prove that the president felt insulted by the burning of the photograph. The defense team has called on the prosecution to produce the president in court.

“What ought to be proven is not whether there were activities insulting the president, such as burning the president’s photo, but whether the president felt insulted,” said defense lawyer Agus Sami Jaya, who is not related to the prosecutor. “And this has to be stated by the president himself.”

Prosecutor Jaya said he had no intention of calling Yudhoyono as a witness and has had no contact with the president’s office. He argued that the president need not feel personally insulted for a crime to have taken place. The law, he said, prohibits insulting the office of the presidency.

“Even if the president did not feel insulted, according to the law we can arrest the people because they are disturbing public order,” the prosecutor said.

Malarangeng, the president’s spokesman, said Yudhoyono respected the independence of the judiciary and did not want to interfere in the court process.

Every country has its own moral standards for the kind of protests it will allow, he said, including the United States.

On Thursday, the courtroom was packed with more than 100 supporters who cheered every statement by the defense lawyers. Some wore traditional Balinese head scarves and sarongs with black T-shirts saying, “Freedom for Gendo!” Outside they sang, “Free, free Gendo, free Gendo now.”

The soft-spoken Gendo seems a bit miscast as a hero. He has been an activist throughout his long student career and took part in the street protests that helped bring down Suharto, but had not risen to prominence until now.

Going to jail, he said, was a small sacrifice compared with the death and disappearance of activist friends during the Suharto era.

“It’s a calling from the heart,” he said.

“I value the citizens’ right to defend their rights. If jail is the risk, I am ready.”