Source : PPMI Nasional
Lintas Student Press Institute (LPM Lintas) from the Ambon Islamic Institute (IAIN Ambon) was closed after publishing a magazine entitled "IAIN Ambon Rawan Pelecehan" on March 14, 2022. The magazine, which has been written since 2017, tells of the confessions of 32 victims of sexual harassment from 2015-2021 who was supposed perpetrators of sexual harassment were lecturers, employees, alumni, and students totaling 14 people.
However, after the magazine was published, the campus actually took repressive steps instead of examining the supposed perpetrators and providing legal certainty to the victims. Finally on March 17, 2022, the Chancellor of IAIN Ambon published a decision to freeze LPM Lintas up to an undetermined time limit with the reason that the journalistic work of Ambonese students violated the campus vision and mission.
Source : Youtube PPMI Nasional
Several advocacy steps are being taken to demand justice from the campus and to fight for the rights of the victims. Support from the Indonesian Student Press Association (PPMI) for LPM Lintas was also rolled out by holding discussions and consolidations with the theme "Babak Baru Kasus Represi terhadap LPM Lintas". This discussion and consolidation was held on June 16, 2022 through the Zoom Meeting platform and live streaming through the PPMI Nasional YouTube account. The activity invited all LPM throughout Indonesia and civil society as well as presenting two speakers, namely Tajudin Buano as chairman of the Ambonese Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and Mona Ervita as public lawyer for the Press Legal Aid Institute (LBH Pers).
Tajudin expressed his opinion that a campus should be able to be more moderate which means it did not bind the students' freedom of expression and freedom of opinion. But with the banning and suspension of students, it could be a good lesson for LPM friends throughout Indonesia where on the one hand friends at LPM Lintas were critical, but on the other hand, the campus was anti-criticism.
Meanwhile, Mona Ervita explained that there are three important points in advocating for the LPM Lintas case. The first was the publishing of the Chancellor's Decree (SK) against the suspension of LPM Lintas activities, the second after the suspension, LPM Lintas friends received persecution, and the third was that LPM Lintas press friends were criminalized.
Source : Youtube PPMI Nasional
"So there are 2 of our friends who have experienced persecution and alhamdulillah the process of advocating for abuse cases has reached the stage of case files and investigations," said Ervita.
And regarding criminalization, Ervita also explained that initially there were three LPM Lintas officers who were reported to the police for questioning with an invitation entitled interview, where the reporter was internal to the campus itself. However, because they were unable to invite the three officers, they again reported 6 other officers from LPM Lintas with the same case. However, there are some clumsiness in the report.
“The form of the report is a public complaint report, not a police report. If we look at some of the advocacy work we have handled, for a public complaint report, the whistleblower does not bring evidence to the police, but the police want to prove whether the presumption case reported is true or not. In addition, Lintas's friends who were called were also not based on criminal procedural law, because the article that was reported was not clear, even the friends who received the invitation letter for the interview had the date of the invitation stated, so we have rejected the request to interview the 9 people,” added Ervita.
Apart from LBH Pers, the Press Council has also carried out an advocacy process to assess whether the magazines produced by LPM Lintas were in accordance with the journalistic code of ethics. And the Press Council has responded to the assessment of this journalistic work where in essence, LPM Lintas was a journalistic activity that should not be frozen and must be operationalized again. In the LPM Lintas magazine, it had been also checked that there was no violation of the journalistic code of ethics, defamation, and even there were confirmation from several sources in the coverage.
LBH Pers has also assisted in advocating for several other institutions, including the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK), the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), and the Director-General of Islamic Religious Education. Thus, the next stage of advocacy is to fight this Rector's Decree in the Ambon State Administrative Court.
"Friends of LBH Pers have written to the Chancellor of IAIN Ambon, proposing an objection to the Rector's Decree because we see from the State Administrative Court Law (UU PTUN) that one of the conditions for proposing a lawsuit to the State Administrative Court is to file an objection first to the party concerned, if the objection is not responded, of course this case will become a dispute,” said Ervita.
To prevent unwanted things from happening, LBH Pers in addition to implementing a remote assistance system (ghost lawyer) – drafting lawsuits, technical remote consultations, communicating with academic friends to oversee cases both litigation and non-litigation, guerrillas with National PPMI friends by holding discussions—LBH Pers also collaborated with friends from the Indigenous People's Lawyer Defenders (PPMAN) who acted as legal counsel to directly oversee the LPM Lintas case.
Source : LPM Lintas
Currently, LPM Lintas also opens donations to revive the institution by holding a t-shirt bazaar with the theme "Baca Bukan Bredel". The bazaar offers a bundling package of 1 magazine + 1 t-shirt at a price of 200,000,-.
Writer: Ayu Ukhti Muslimah (English Education’ 19)
Editor: Ayu Ukhti Muslimah (English Education’ 19) and Thifa Nabilla Jazaufi (Pharmacy'19)
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