"The Police chief's move is a breakthrough and good innovation that could reduce uproar," the lawmaker told Antara here on Thursday.
Hery expressed belief that the Police chief's move would prevent the community from filing police reports against one another.
"I notice the spirit and good will of the Police chief to make the Police institution more professional in legal enforcement, so that its impact would be felt by the public," he remarked.
Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo had notified the press of his plan to follow up on President Joko Widodo's directives highlighting no application of "elastic" clauses in the ITE Law to criminalize certain parties.
Prabowo said he would urge his subordinates to prioritize mediation in handling reports concerning the ITE Law violations that can potentially trigger horizontal conflicts.
He cited defamation as an example of a case having no potential to trigger a horizontal conflict.
Moreover, Prabowo would issue an instruction to his subordinates to handle reports on violation of the ITE Law filed by the victims personally and not by those claiming to be representatives of the victims.
The Police chief drew attention to President Widodo’s remarks at a leadership meeting of the National Police (Polri) and the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) on February 15, 2021, that emphasized the importance of law enforcers to be selective in responding to and handling reports referring to ITE Law violations.
"If the ITE Law could not deliver a sense of justice, I will urge the DPR to revise the ITE law together because this is the upstream, particularly to abolish 'elastic' articles having multiple interpretations that could be easily interpreted unilaterally," the head of state noted.
The ITE Law was passed in 2008 and amended in 2016. However, some parties suspected that the law’s defamation clause is often used to silence voices that express criticism of the government and vested interests.
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(INE)
Translator: Imam B, Fardah
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
