THE voice of prosecutors grew hoarse when they read the indictment, which could be understood as it was a 122-page text. It was so long, in fact, that three public prosecutors—Bastian Hutabarat, Robert Tacoy and Wahyudi—had to read it by turns.

Then they arrived at the core point. In a flat tone, the prosecutors demanded two years in prison for Bambang Harymurti, chief editor of TEMPO magazine. In addition, the defendant must dir