Sexual Gratification in Indonesia

On 12 June 2012, former Director of Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau Ng Boon Gay, faced two charges of obtaining Sexual Gratification from the Senior Sales Manager at Oracle Corporation Singapore Pte. on December 2011 as an inducement to help further Oracle's business interests. 

According to Reuters, Ng also faces two other charges of obtaining Sexual Gratification from the same individual when she was an employee of Hitachi Data Systems Ltd. 

The charges against Ng come one week after the former head of Singapore's Civil Defense Force Peter Lim faced 10 Sexual Gratification charges involving three different women working for IT firms in the city state.                                                                                                
Unlike Singapore, where the laws stipulated that Sexual Gratification is a Crime, the laws in Indonesia do not explicitly mention Sexual Gratification as a Corruption Crime (Bribery).

The website of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) quoted the Anti Corruption Law No. 31/ 1999 Article 12B and Law No. 20/2001 : "Any Gratification to a Civil Servant of State Official is regarded as Bribery, if it is connected to his/her position and contradictory to obligation or duty, as follows ....."

Further, the Explanation of said Art. 12 B : "Gratification: is widely defined as any acts of giving money, goods/things, discount, commission, interest free loan, travelling ticket, accommodation, package tour, free medical treatment, and other facility in Indonesia or abroad using manual or electronic facility.

Actually Sexual Gratification if not something strange in Indonesia. The Indonesian Corruption Watch was quoted by Okezone as saying that Sexual Gratification has long existed and often been used in Indonesia.

While the Chief of the Constitutional Court Mahfud MD was quoted by Inilah.com as saying that Sexual Gratification may have stronger impact than Money Gratification, therefore he support inclusion of Sexual Gratification in the Anti Corruption Law.  

Although our Law has not regard Sexual Gratification as a Corruption Crime (Bribery), I hope that Marketing people, especially the ladies, would not use Sex as part of  their efforts to win the hearts and the minds of their customers.

Last but not least, I also hope that Sexual Gratification would soon be regarded as a Corruption Crime (Bribery) that is by the amendment of the Anti Corruption Law.

Photo : Courtesy of Photo Search

Trapped in a Secret Love

Last month, I met an old friend of mine i.e. Joni Junaidi (54), at the Pan d'Or Restaurant in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta.

I first met Joni more than 30 years ago when we were both studying at the Trisakti University in West Jakarta, where I studied Law and Joni studied Accounting. Since then we became close friends.

Upon graduation, Joni worked as an accountant with a Jakarta based multinational oil and gas company for 30 years. He lived with his wife Aisha (52) whom he had married for 26 years, and a couple of wonderful children Josie (25) and Jennny (23) at a nice home in South Jakarta.

All of this time, I always thought that Joni's family is one of those model happy family whereby Joni is an ideal husband/father and Aisha as an ideal wife/mother.

For that reason, I was very surprised when Joni told me that he want to talk about a problem related to his family life.

Joni revealed that for the last four years he has been having a secret affair with Rosa (49), his old girlfriend whom he broke up one year before he married Aisha.
Rosa is married to Eddy with no children and unhappy because Eddy is an alcoholic and often beat her brutally when he gets drunk. For that reason, she has filed a Divorce Lawsuit with the Religious Court of South Jakarta.

The problem for Joni is that Rosa asked him to marry her soon after her divorce lawsuit has been granted by the Religious Court.

In this connection, I told Joni that according to the Indonesian Criminal Law, he and Rosa can be regarded as having committed the Crime of Adultery. Article 284 of the said Law stipulated that Adultery is sexual intercourse between a married man and a woman (married or unmarried) which is punishable by the Court to a maximum penalty of 9 months in Jail, provided that their spouse file a complaint with the local Police.

I advised Joni to end his love affair with Rosa, and Joni said that he already talked to Rosa about that possibility but she refused by saying that she agreed to have sexual intercourse because Joni has promised to marry her. Rosa even threatened that she would reveal their love affair to Joni's i.e wife Aisha if Joni ever leave her.

I urged Joni to try his very best to persuade Rosa not to reveal their love affair to Aisha because it would make both of them end up in Jail.

Note:   I have changed the names of all the persons, time and places.

Remission for Corruption, Illegal Drug and Terror Criminals

In connection with the Eid Ul-Fitr celebration, the government has been very kind to Criminals who were sentenced to jail by the Courts of Law for their involvement in Corruption, Illegal Drugs and Terrorism.

Tribune News reported that the government has granted Remission (Jail Sentence Discount) to 235 Corruption Criminals (8 released), 6,793 Illegal Drug Criminals (65 released) and 36 Terror Criminals.

This is the second time in one month that the government granted Remission to Corruption Criminals after it granted to many other Corruption Criminals during Independence Day on 17 August 2011.

The granting of Remission has been criticized by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Rakyat Merdeka quoted Johan Budi of KPK as saying that grating of Remission to Corruption Criminals should be restricted considering that Corruption is an extraordinary crime therefore should not be treated ordinarily.

I hope that in the future the government would not grant anymore Remission to Corruption, Illegal Drug and Terror Criminals, so that they would really learn to obey the laws.

Please Protect Us

Yesterday, President SBY called on Indonesians not to rely on the Police and asked us to help fight extremism.

The Jakarta Globe quoted the President as saying that Indonesia is now facing a continuous and serious threat in terrorism and in horizontal violence.

Horizontal violence, a term often used in reference to student bullying, refers to abuse or aggression by individuals on their peers around them. 

I hope that the President has instructed the intelligence networks, especially the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) to improve their performance in monitoring and detecting any kinds of activities that might pose a threat to our national security, such as the so called Indonesian Islamic State (NII) movement, those who spread Book Bombs, those who plan any kinds of violence, and other acts of crimes.

Moreover, I also hope that the President has instructed the Police to improve their performance in serving and protecting the society.

Crimebook, the Anti-Social Network

Facebook is so popular as a Social Network media, that it has inspired many people to take advantage of it.

It inspired movie makers to produce, gained popularity and money from the movie " The Social Network "

Unfortunately, Facebook has also been used by many people to do bad things. For example there were some Court cases in Indonesia which originated from disputes caused by what people wrote on Facebook.

And recently, I read on Legal Blog Watch about Nick Webber (19) and Ryan Thomas (18) in the United Kingdom, who have been convicted and face up to five years in prison " for running a US$ 26 million Facebook-style website for Criminals described in court as 'Crimebook "

Legal Blog Watch quoted a report in The Age which described the said site as a very "anti-social network" run on a website called GhostMarket.net, and allowed as many as 8,000 members to exchange details about thousands of stolen credit cards and hacked bank accounts.

The judge in the case described Crimebook as a "criminal enterprise offering sophisticated advice on how to hack into computers, cause them to malfunction and retrieve personal information from computers -- and how to do it on a massive scale."

Police reportedly found 100,000 stolen credit card details on one of the two young men's laptops and traced the information back to the GhostMarket.net site. After their arrests in 2009, the 18- and 17-year-old skipped bail and fled to Majorca, but they were apprehended last year after returning to the U.K. Both have now pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to make or supply articles for use in fraud, encouraging or assisting offenders, and conspiracy to commit fraud."

Cyber-bullying

Cyber-bullying is one of the most popular story in the media today.

According to Wikipedia, Cyber-bullying is "the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by individual or group, that intended to harm others".

As it has become more common in society, particularly among young people, legislation and awareness campaigns have arisen to combat Cyber-bullying.

Please find below an article about Cyber-bullying Court Sentence in the United Stated that I have read on Legal Blog Watch.

20-Year-Old Sentenced to 45 Days for Cyberbullying

This week, 20 year-old Matthew Riskin Bean was sentenced to 45 days for cyberbullying, following his involvement with a group of anonymous Web users who tried to induce a teen to commit suicide.

The victim in this case posted nude pictures of himself on the Internet when he was 12 or 13. This wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but then again, 12- and 13 year-olds aren’t always known for being especially savvy.

A few years later, Bean discovered comments about the photo on an online imageboard, and he e-mailed the images to the teenager’s school, claiming to be a “concerned mother“ of another boy at the school, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

U.S. District Judge Anita Brody described Bean’s crime as “extremely malicious” and said, “You have to be blind to what's going on in this world not to know the effect of cyberbullying on present-day society."

As the ABA Journal notes, Bean could have been sentenced to five years in prison if had been charged with distributing child pornography.

Instead, he got off easy with only a 45-day sentence and five years of probation.
Even so, a few minutes of bad decisions could haunt Bean for the rest of his life. I wonder what potential employers will think of him when he has to disclose on job applications that he has been convicted of a crime.

Side note: A defense attorney apparently requested an alternative placement for Bean on the grounds that his client’s young age and his small size -- he stands 5-feet-4-inches tall and weighs 110 pounds -- would make Bean a target for abuse. What goes around comes around …

Image :  Courtesy of Peduli Cyber Bullying

A Crime Suspect sworn in as Mayor

Last Friday, Jefferson Rumajar, Mayor of Tomohon, was sworn in to serve his second term in office, and Jimmy Eman as Deputy Mayor.

The ceremony took place at the Ministry of Home Affairs in Jakarta, because since September Rumajar has been detained by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as Suspect in a Corruption case that is now being tried at a Court in Jakarta.
  
After the ceremony, Rumajar, member of the Golkar Party,  returned to jail to induct 28 officials of the town of Tomohon, North Sulawesi.

Rumajar told reporters that although he will be in jail until the Court determine his legal status, however there will not be any problem because Deputy Mayor Jimmy Eman who will serve as Acting Mayor.

Meanwhile, Governor of North Sulawesi Sarundayang said that Rumajar will be suspended from his position as Mayor and Jimmy Eman shall become Acting Mayor. He also said that the induction of 28 officials by Rumajar was not legitimate.

The induction of a crime suspect is possible based on the Chief of Region Law 20044 which adopted the concept of Presumption of Innocent i.e a person is assumed innocent until there is a final court verdict which  determine otherwise.
In this case, Rumajar's position as Mayor will be determined after there is a final Court Verdict. If he is found guilty, his position shall be canceled, otherwise he would be be an effective Mayor.

The above shows that the sworn in of a Crime Suspect to serve as a Mayor has created uncertainty on who will lead the town, therefore should be avoided. For which purpose, I hope that Crime Suspects should not be allowed to participate as candidate in elections.

For details on the above, please read the following articles ::
-  Graft Suspect Made Mayor in North Sulawesi (The Jakarta Globe)
-  Graft-suspect incumbent sworn in as Tomohon Mayor (The Jakarta Post)
-  Walikota Tomohon Dinonaktifkan (Metrotv)

 Photo: Courtesy of Media Palu

Legalization of Alterina's Sex Status

Last Tuesday, the District Court of South Jakarta has cleared Alterina Hofan (33) of Criminal charges i.e. Identity Fraud and Falsifying Documents, therefore legalized his status as a man.

The Court decides that although Alterina has falsified his documents as charged by the Prosecutor, however considering that this was done merely for his interest and did not inflict loss on other people,  therefore the Court has not regard it as a Crime.                        

The case began on 1 October 2009 when Bernard Hadipuspito dan Grace Maria reported Alterina to the Jakarta Police for marrying their daughter Jane (23) in Las Vegas, U.S.A, on September 2009. Bernard, CEO of Binus University Jakarta, claimed that Alterina is a female therefore cannot marry their daughter. He alleged that Alterina has falsified his identity. As a result of this report Alterina was detained by the Police from 30 April until 31 May 2010.

The Court trials revealed that according to his birth certificate, Alterina was born as a baby girl in Jayapura, Papua on 1 November 1977. At the age of 7, male genitalia began to develop, followed by breasts.later on.
In 2006, Alterina went to a hospital in Canada to remove of the breasts.
And in 2009, the Public Registrar office in Jayapura legalized Alterina's status as a male. 

The Court made it's decision after its all-male-judges closely observed that Alterina has a small penis, but no vagina. 

In reaction to the above Court Verdict, the Prosecutor has stated its plan to file an appeal against it.

Sources :
-  Court Declares Alterina Male on Eyewitness Testimony (The Jakarta Globe)
-  Pengadilan Lepaskan Alter Dari Segala Tuntutan (Hukumonline)
-  Alterina Lelaki Sejati Dibebaskan PN Jaksel (Warta Kota)

Photo :  Courtesy of The Jakarta Globe.

Initials of Crime Suspect

" The news media are not required to write the initials of crime suspects "

This was revealed today by Executive Editor of Kompas Newspaper Budiman Tanudiredja when he testified as witness in the trial of Civil Lawsuit filed by Raymond Teddy at the District Court of West Jakarta.

Budiman was quoted by Kompas as saying that based on the Journalistic Code of Ethic Article 5, the media are only required to write initials of crime suspects in Decency cases, and when the suspect is an under age child.

Budiman further stated that the report was made based on the information provided by the Public Relation officer of the Police.

Kompas Newspaper, Kompas.com and RCTI have been sued by Raymond Teddy, for reporting his arrest by the Police on charges of Illegal Gambling at the Hotel Sultan on December 2008.

Beside the three media, Raymond also filed similar lawsuits against four other media i.e Suara Pembaruan, Republika, Seputar Indonesia, and Detik.com at three different District Court i.e in Central Jakarta, South Jakarta and East Jakarta.

The above information is important for news reporters as well as bloggers.