Oh ye of doubt and little faith! You did laugh when Unspun, raving like Zarathustra come down from his cave, did rant on about Richard Ness gunning for the people who put him through hell in the Buyat Bay case.Now it has come to pass. The Revealations according to Eric, who was begot by Rick, testifies that Unspun, after all, had power of prophesy and did peer into the future here.
What next? I say, verily to NGOs like WALHI, ICEL and JATAM: Repent! Or get a good lawyer ready.
Today, May 15, at 11:00 am in the District Court of Central Jakarta, Dad’s Legal Counsels filed a civil claim against Jane Perlez and the New York Times Company. While talking to my Dad yesterday, I asked what prompted him to take this legal action. His response was simple:
“I have watched people in the Buyat community have their livelihoods destroyed. I have seen my friends and colleagues humiliated, questioned and detained by the police, while their wives and children were scared and embarrassed. I have seen my wife and family impacted by all the negative publicity. When I was summoned by the police who intended to arrest me, I had to reassure my wife and tell her, “Honey you have to trust me, I will be back home at some point and rest assured that we have done nothing wrong, we need to face the problem, be strong and we will get through this because truth is on our side”
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Unspun 
rick’s thinking with his heart, not head, joining the ranks of suharto and tomy winata in suing the press. we’re grown-ups here: 90 pc of indonesian judges are criminals because they sell verdicts. exonerated in the – what was it – west jakarta district court ? if ness is so convinced – why not sue the NYT in Manhattan ? unfortunately if he wins here, perlez & co will be able to shrug it off to corruption…
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because J Perlez is the Southeast Asian bureau chief of the NYT based in Central Jakarta. she might had got some info sources from NGOs based in Jkt in writting about the Buyat case. this was not effective because in Indonesia she needed to go directly to the disputed area for finding good sources from locals, as she shouldn’t had generalise case. different area, different people and social culture to develop cases. journalism is about good investigation, isn’t it? Ness might have some evidence of bad sources of info given to Perlez that can be used to attack her in the court. Otherwise, Ness just pays her for tuition fee for further jurnalism education :).
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Earlier statement has to be reviewed over the news that the NYT has decided to fight the case. In doing so, are they adding legitimacy to a corrupt and f–, I mean screwed up process ? They could have said: ‘In the U.S. we have a foreign corrupt practices act, we’re an ethical company, therefore we could not get a fair hearing in the moral sewer of an Indonesian court.’ Of course, they’ve tried to claim credit for getting the case to the ‘moral sewer of an Indonesian court’ in the first place.
It’s gloves off time now. They’re going to battle in the Central Jakarta District Court. It’ll be interesting to see who the NYT hires and who wins this case.
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Achmad: The NY Times and Jane Perlez, from all that I’ve heard, deserves what’s coming. There will be to sports worth watching when the hearings get under way: one in the court of law; the other in the court of public opinion. Bring it on!
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Unspun: also heard that it’s very hard to prove cases like this against media companies. Another factor is that the NYT has staff lawyers who are very experienced at defending defamation cases. Not sure how this translates onto Indonesian turf. If the Indonesian press had any nous they might turn the microscope on the NYT’s locally-retained lawyer, fees, and any ‘financial transations’ with court officials or judges.
Agree that the NYT and Perlez had it coming. Don’t agree that the legal process in 90 % or more of cases Indonesia has anything do to with the facts. Maybe that’s also the case overseas. But we’re all adults here (except for me): justice is for sale in Indonesia. It’ll be a bidding war between the NYT and Newmont.
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