These Are Three Catchall Articles Of The ITE Law That Must Be Revised, What Are They?

JAKARTA - Political analyst from Exposit Strategic, Arif Susanto, said there are three problematic articles in Law Number 19 Year 2016 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions (UU ITE).

This follows President Joko Widodo's plan to revise the ITE Law. This is because so far many parties consider a number of articles to be multiple interpretations and unfair.

First is Article 27 paragraph (1) concerning distributing and/or transmitting and/or making accessible electronic information and/or electronic documents that have contents that violate decency.

Unfortunately, this article often ensnares those who broadcast content that violates decency. Because, said Arif, in some cases the victims were actually convicted.

Suppose someone has intimate content. The content is distributed. The problem is, it is not only the perpetrator who distributed the content, but also those who recorded it, and then he was charged with this article that actually has multiple interpretations," said Arif in a webinar discussion, Friday, February 19.

The second is Article 27 (3) regarding the alleged content of electronic defamation information. According to Arif, many cases could have been resolved through mediation. Unfortunately, this article opens the room for related parties to be convicted.

The third is Article 28 paragraph (2) about hate speech in the information or electronic documents leading to ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group (SARA).

"For example, if I say something wrong or make a typo so that I share something offensive to other people. Supposedly, the contents of the insult must be made specifically so that they are not like a catchall article," he said.

Examples of misuse cases of multi-interpretative articles in the ITE Law occurred in Prita Mulyasari and Baiq Nuril. Prita was convicted for defaming the good reputation of Omni International Hospital, Tangerang. Meanwhile, Baiq Nuril is considered to distribute the recording of immoral content. In fact, she is a victim of harassment from those who reported her.

"Prita's case finally ended when they filed a reconsideration (PK) and Baiq Nuril received an amnesty. This means that she simply overturned the previous verdict. In fact, the initial essence was not covered," he concluded.