Teacher faces charges, dismissal for posting criticism in Facebook
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 06/09/2009 5:30 PM | National
Another citizen is facing libel charges for posting criticism in popular online social network Facebook, in the wake of public outcry over controversial detention of a housewife in Tangerang for sharing her complaint about hospital services over the Internet.
Indra Sutriafi Pipil, a teacher of state vocational school in the North Sulawesi city of Kotamubagu, told Antara news agency on Tuesday he was also facing dismissal for allegedly defaming Mayor Djelantik Mokodompit.
In his Facebook account, Indra said of rampant “corruption of work hours” in the municipality administration office.
Kotamubagu police post chief First Insp. Muhammad Monoarfa said he had received a report filed by municipality administration and handed over the case to the local prosecutor’s office. Reports said that like the Tangerang housewife Prita Mulyasari, Indra would be charged under the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in jail.
Regional administration secretary Muhamad Mokoginta admitted the libel lawsuit filed against Indra, saying the teacher had discredited the administration.
“We reported the case to the law enforcers about last month,” he said.
The Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy revealed last week its latest survey, which ranked the bureaucracy in Indonesia the second worst in Asia.
Are we, Indonesians, having problem with criticism? Why can't we use criticism as a basic to build a better life? Or, perhaps because we can only criticize other people while forgetting that we should also be open to critics?
If any criticism can be charged with the UU ITE (Information and Electronic Transaction Law) we'll probably need to say good bye to blog, to citizen journalism, or even to the internet social networking...
Or we keep it only as a part to concentrate in making money...and more money...
2 comments:
Wow, this is interesting! This is also the bad side of internet, when we could express our freedom of expression thru writing. I dont how serious the author's allegations on the hospital services, but it is amazing that a local govertment filed a lawsuit about it. If it is criticism, then everyone gets it but we take it positively! So, Im not saying not to blog or write something or even join social networking sites, but I think we have to be curious of what we want to convey to our readers. This is also the reason why I dont dwell (writing) on sensitive issues like politics and religion. All the best. Rey
Good and bad, like the Asian symbol of harmony, are always come in one package.
It was the hospital who filed a lawsuit to complaining client (but this one is not from facebook, it was from a personal e-mail which was distributed through mailing list), you can read my other posts about Prita Mulyasari. She was free, but perhaps the case would not stop on that point.
The one mentioned in facebook was a citizen complained over time corruption (meaning that the ciwil servant was not really working during the office hours)...
Politic and religion are indeed very sensitive, but sometimes we do need to learn to communicate our needs and our feelings about it to get a win-win solution. But we do need to realize that sometimes others can get it the wrong way. At least we do need to edit and to handle emotional feeling before writing out such a complain....
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