LBH Pers to Report Persecution of Tempo Journalist to Police

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) planned to report the persecution case of Tempo’s journalist in Surabaya, Nurhadi, to the National Police's internal affairs division. The attackers were suspected of being police members.

LBH Pres Executive Director Ade Wahyudin said today, March 29, that the alleged violation of the code of ethics was proven as Nurhadi was beaten and threatened and his phone was taken. According to him, a number of alleged ethical and procedural violations could be identified in the chronology of the incident. It was also suspected that the perpetrators had committed violence and damaged the journalist's work tools.

The incident was also against the act of upholding human rights as stipulated in Article 19 of Law No. 2 of 2002 concerning the Indonesian National Police.

Ade said the alleged perpetrators also violated the Police Code of Ethics as noted in the National Police Chief Regulation No. 14 of 2011 concerning the Indonesian Police Professional Code of Ethics, particularly in Article 10a and Article 15e.

Apart from the professional code of ethics, the alleged perpetrators are suspected of having committed criminal acts as said in Article 18 of the Press Law and several articles in the Criminal Code.

As previously reported, Nurhadi the journalist was persecuted while trying to seek confirmation from the former Investigation Director of the Tax Directorate General of the Finance Ministry, Angin Prayitno Aji, regarding the tax bribery case on Saturday, March 27, 2021.

Read: Tempo Magazine's Chief Editor Condemns Persecution of Journalist in Surabaya

M ROSSENO AJI