Ruminations

Criminal Harassment of a Muslim Predator

"That kind of conversation [obscene calls] happened so often I couldn’t even count. I told him, ‘You need to go to a psychiatrist'."
"I was really shocked [to be found guilty] because all the witnesses said clearly I was not the one who transmitted the material."
"I don’t really get what was defamatory [charges her predatory boss lodged against her]. It is you yourself telling people about your bad behavior [in recorded messages of his unwanted, bullying, lewd and intrusive calls to her]."
"A lot of women still feel they are under pressure from their bosses and their bosses can do whatever they want."
"For me, justice seems so far away."
Nuril Maknun, Lombok Island, Indonesia

Nuril Maknun after she received a six-month jail term for violating a controversial law against spreading indecent material, in Mataram on Lombok island on November 16, 2018. (PIKONG/AFP/Getty Images)

"As long as the law does not change, women will forever be closed off and will never want to report it [sexual harassment]."
"Especially if you look at Nuril’s case. You are the victim, but then you are the one who is put into prison."
"If the case review does not provide justice, then she can apply for clemency to the president. Once she has applied for clemency, that’s where I come in."
Indonesian lawyer, Joko Jumadi

A panel of three judges saw fit to sentence 40-year-old, mother of three Nuril Maknun -- a bookkeeper at a school in Mataram on Lombok Island, Indonesia -- to prison in a six-month sentence. She must also pay a fine levied against her that amounts to about $35,000. Indonesian jurisprudence does not look kindly on women who soil the public character of an Indonesian man, even if that man had hounded this woman with repeated, insistent calls that she listen to his obscene talk of his sex life and agree to have a sexual dalliance with him.

Nuril Maknun did nothing to attract those calls and the lurid monologue that was unleashed on her by the man who was the principal of the Senior High School Seven where she worked as a bookkeeper. She informed her husband of the harassment that began in 2012. Eventually she took to recording those calls and had someone of her acquaintance listen to them. The obscene calls were downloaded to an electronic device. Which led the principal, whose name is simply Muslim -- quite fitting -- to declare himself to have been defamed.

The woman had shared the content of the calls from the principal in hopes of saving her own reputation from the rumours that were circulating that she was having an affair with the man she loathed. To convince her husband that the rumours were untrue, and to inform another teacher of the very same thing; she was innocent of leading the man on, had no interest in having any intimate relations with him, and wanted only to be left alone, she made the recordings.

A lawsuit ensued and an investigation and eventually a legal battle, in 2015 when Muslim, discovering the presence of the recordings reported the bookkeeper to the police claiming that his comments shared by Nuril Maknun with others without his authorization must be interpreted at defamation. That resulted in imprisonment for Nuril Maknun for a month while an investigation ensued. She was subsequently acquitted of the charge, but an appeal was filed by prosecutors.

When the panel of three judges sentenced her to six months in prison and a substantial fine, she fought for justice, evidently believing it could be achieved, and her case was brought to the Supreme Court. There, another panel of judges denied her request for a review of the verdict. She now faces the reality that should her family be unable to pay the $35,000 fine imposed upon her for defamation of Muslim's character, her prison sentence could be expanded.

"We are concerned about the impact of this decision because it opens a door for perpetrators of sexual violence to criminalize victims", stated Ade Wahyudin, head of Legal Aid Foundation in Indonesia. Bearing in mind that the superior Indonesian court handed down their ruling this week that it is she who should be punished, not her aggressor, on the basis that sharing the recordings was akin to distributing indecent material, given their content.

"If later she does not find justice ... she can request clemency to the president", declared President Joko Widodo, urging the woman to seek a judicial review. Justice in Indonesia finds women guilty of the acts of conscienceless predatory men. But as an act of public compassion, the president of the country is willing to respond positively to a request for clemency. This is the plight of women living in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.