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The National Police drew the ire of journalists and media experts on Friday by summoning two newspaper editors for questioning, after the force had already come under fire over its persistence in pursuing a criminal case against two antigraft commissioners while failing to name a businessman a suspect in a related bribery case.

Police briefly questioned the editors of national Indonesian-language dailies Kompas and Seputar Indonesia on Friday afternoon in relation to their publication this month of transcripts of wiretapped conversations between businessman Anggodo Widjojo and a number of law enforcement officials. The summonses were issued on Thursday night.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said the questioning was part of efforts to compile evidence against Anggodo — not  intimidate the press.

“We need evidence from a number of media so the summonses were not because there were problems with their coverage,” Nanan said.

Anggodo is a key figure in an alleged plot involving police officials and prosecutors to fabricate a case against two deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

He has not been named a suspect in any case despite having publicly stated that he had paid Rp 5.1 billion ($540,600) to KPK officials in exchange for dropping an investigation into his brother, Anggoro Widjojo.

Nanan said police needed more evidence to complete the case against Anggodo, and if necessary might even summon officials from the Constitutional Court, which played the taped conversations on Nov. 3.

But Nevy Hetharia, the managing editor of Seputar Indonesia, said police interviewed him as a witness concerning Indra Sahnun Lubis — the lawyer for Anggodo’s lawyer, Bonaran Situmeang — and Anggodo’s reports to police.

Anggodo filed a complaint with the police against the KPK on Oct. 30 for tapping his phone.

Both Nevy and Budiman Tanuredjo, the managing editor of Kompas, said police basically asked one simple question: had the newspapers on Nov. 4 published the actual transcript of the recorded conversations played at the Constitutional Court hearing?
“He [the police officer] asked if what was published in Kompas was  from the Constitutional Court? I replied ‘Yes, we published it in Kompas on November 4,’ ” Budiman said.

“This is not a judicial process, only a regular interview. There were no cornering questions. We were having coffee.”

Budiman declined to comment when asked if the police’s questions reflected their claim that the editors had been summoned primarily to gather evidence against Anggodo.

Ibnu Hamad, a media and communications expert at the University of Indonesia, said the police’s questions did not reflect a search for additional evidence against Anggodo.

“These [summonses] neither support nor contradict the evidence,” he said. “What sort of riddle are they playing here?”

Earlier on Friday, the Coalition of Journalists Against the Criminalization of the Press rallied outside National Police headquarters to protest the summonses, saying they marked the beginning of press criminalization.

“We are afraid that if we allow this it will be followed by other summons to other media,” said rally coordinator Suparni, from El Shinta radio.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) called on police investigators to respect the rights of journalists.

It said in a news release that under the Press Law journalists have the right to refuse legal responsibility regarding their journalistic work and cannot be forced to reveal the identity of their sources.