Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura | National | Thu, October 23 2014, 7:42 PM
Prosecutors demanded on Thursday four months’ imprisonment and a Rp 2 million (US$166) fine for two French journalists, Thomas Charles Dandois and Marie Valentine Bourrat, for alleged immigration violations.
Sukanda, one of the prosecutors, said Dandois and Bourrat were proven guilty of violating Law No.8/2011 on immigration and the Criminal Code (KUHP) by carrying out journalistic activities on tourist visas in a trial led by Marthinus Bala at the Jayapura District Court on Thursday.
“Aggravating circumstance are that they could use any information they obtained from their illegal activities to report on Indonesia in a negative light,” said Sukanda.
“Meanwhile, among mitigating circumstances are that they have admitted their guilt in abusing their tourist visas and have apologized,” he went on.
The two defendants’ lawyer, Aristo MA Pangaribuan, said he appreciated the charges; however, he insisted that the two French journalists should be freed because they had not been proven guilty of misusing their visas as charged by the prosecutors.
“Information from witnesses and evidence presented during the trial does not prove Dandois and Bourrat carried out journalistic activities. An expert witness from the Press Council has also said the two journalists only conducted research, and research is different from journalistic activity,” said Aristo.
Earlier, the Press Council’s legal commission head, Yoseph “Stanley” Adi Prasetyo, who was presented as an expert witness by the lawyer, said the criminal charges against Dandois and Bourrat were a blight on freedom of the press in Indonesia. This should be the one and only criminal case against journalists in the country, he said.
“If they are considered to have violated the Immigration Law, why don’t we just deport them instead of laying criminal charges against them?” said Stanley.
He said activities conducted by Dandois and Bourrat could not be categorized as journalistic activities because they had simply conducted research for a documentary they would make on Papua.
Bourrat and Dandois were arrested in Wamena on Aug.6 and have been detained since Aug.14 for allegedly breaching immigration rules. They went on trial on Monday on charges of abuse of entry visas. There were hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.