(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned journalist Teguh Santosa’s trial on charges of insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, which began on 31 August 2006 and resumed on 6 September, when Santosa testified in court in defence of his decision to post three controversial Mohammed cartoons on the website he edits, Rakyat Merdeka. Santosa […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned journalist Teguh Santosa’s trial on charges of insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, which began on 31 August 2006 and resumed on 6 September, when Santosa testified in court in defence of his decision to post three controversial Mohammed cartoons on the website he edits, Rakyat Merdeka.
Santosa told the Jakarta court he posted the cartoons last February in order to supplement news reports on the continuing controversy about the cartoons, which originally appeared in a Danish newspaper. He said he then consulted the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), an Indonesian press freedom organisation, and was told he had not committed any breach of journalistic ethics.
After he was briefly detained in July, Santosa said he also discussed the case with two senior Islamic representatives in Indonesia. One, Abubakar Baasyir, the president of the Assembly of Indonesian Mujahideen (MMI), assured him his action did not constitute an attack on Islam or the Prophet. The other, Habib Mohammad Riziq, the president of the Front for the Defenders of Islam (FPI), said that in his view the case was closed ever since Santosa withdrew the cartoons and issued an apology the day after posting them.
Santosa, who faces the possibility of a five-year prison sentence, told the judges: “I am deeply disturbed by this charge of insulting Islam, my own religion.” He also repeated several times that he was “just a journalist, and not a provocateur”. The next hearing is set for 13 September.
