Verdict against Dhani must not become jurisprudence: Expert

Politician Ahmad Dhani gets 1.5-years imprisonment for his provocative tweets.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Criminal law expert from Indonesian Islamic University (UII) Muzakir said it will be dangerous if the verdict against Dhani became jurisprudence. State officials and netizens could also be punished for uttering harsh words.

"It will be a disaster for the country if freedom of speech could be sentenced, where harsh words could all be punished," he said when contacted by Republika.co.id, on Tuesday (Jan 29).

Meanwhile, political observer from University of Indonesia, Rocky Gerung assessed that over time, the reformation era was even farther away from its initial ideals. He took a 1.5-year sentence for musician and politician Ahmad Dhani in hate speech case, as an example.

"The sentence received by the politician has ignored a sense of justice because the politician was only share his opinion in the public sphere," Rocky Gerung said when contacted by Republika.co.id, on Tuesday.

He assessed that Ahmad Dhani's case could be one of the evaluation materials about the decline of the reformation. Rocky said, now the warmth of citizenship has begun to be scarce because people are afraid to express their thoughts.

"(Realization) of social justice and human freedom. These two things are the essence of the reformation. Since the Forum Democracy was created, we've discussed about that," said the philosophy expert who once teach at the University of Indonesia (UI).

Previously, Presiding Judges Ratmoho sentenced Ahmad Dhani to a 1.5-year imprisonment for being found guilty legally and convincingly committing a criminal act of spreading hatred. Through his Twitter account @AHMADDHANIPRAST, Dhani made three tweets that were proven to be aimed at one particular community group based on ethnicity, religion, race, and inter- groups (SARA).

The judge's verdict was lighter than the prosecutor's charge that demanded a two-years prison sentence. Meanwhile, lawyer team of Dhani has submitted an appeal statement to the DKI Jakarta High Court regarding to this verdict on Tuesday.

"We submit an appeal statement to the DKI High Court on Tuesday, which was prepared after the judge read the verdict," Hendarsam Marantoko, Dhani's lawyer, said in Jakarta.

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January 30, 2019 at 06:30PM from Republika Online RSS Feed http://bit.ly/2MDZi9L
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