DILI (TOP) – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Timor-Leste’s authorities to put the public interest first by dropping charges against a journalist accused of violating judicial confidentiality for reporting that 30 girls were illegally detained and forced to undergo virginity tests as part of the investigation into an American Catholic priest accused of raping minors.
Anything concerning the Catholic Church is extremely sensitive in Timor-Leste, as Raimundos Oki, the editor of The Oekusi Post News website can confirm.
He is facing a possible six-year jail sentence under article 291 of the penal code after being questioned about his coverage of the case by the Criminal Investigation Scientific Police in Dili, the capital, on 30 June.
“The story that Raimundos Oki covered is so sensitive that the justice system cannot suddenly accuse him of violating judicial confidentiality without taking account of broader public interest concerns,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “It is perfectly healthy in a mature democracy for a journalist to question how a judicial investigation is conducted. We therefore ask justice minister Tiago Amaral Sarmento to order the withdrawal of the charges against Raimundos Oki.”
The article that Oki published in The Oekusi Post News in June 2021 revealed that 30 girls under the age of 18 had been detained on a prosecutor’s orders a year earlier in Oecusse, a western exclave of Timor-Leste, and had been subjected to forced vaginal examinations. One of the girls subsequently died from a vaginal infection.
Sensitive case against priest
The examinations were ordered with the aim of getting more evidence against Richard Daschbach, an American missionary priest who was finally convicted in December 2021 of raping at least four girls.
This now defrocked priest, who had run Topu Honis orphanage since its creation in 1991, was a long-standing supporter of Timor’s independence and had many high-level connections in both political and Catholic Church circles – connections that made the paedophilia case against him even more sensitive.
Oki’s story revealed that some of the girls were detained by the prosecutor and police and subjected to forced genital examinations although they had denied having been sexually assaulted by Daschbach.
Oki, who is himself from Oecusse, told RSF he had wanted to draw attention to the lasting and irreversible trauma that had been inflicted on the girls he interviewed.
“No journalist had talked to the victims of these virginity tests,” he said. “If the priest is found guilty, let him go to prison. But it is my duty as a journalist to publish this public interest story. I refuse to allow these young girls, who have been the victims of sexual abuse, real human rights violations, to be forgotten.”
Two years ago, RSF criticised a proposed law in Timor-Leste under which anyone “offending the honour and prestige” of a representative of the state or church would face up to three years in prison.
According to Oki’s report, the public prosecution ordered several local NGOs and police to detain around 30 underage girls for two weeks and performed forced virginity tests in June 2020.
Speaking to UCA News on July 1, Oki said, “When almost all media, including international media, focused on the former priest, I tried to bring up the other side, about the forced virginity test... I happen to be from Oecusse and I found those 30 girls. I spoke to them, and they admitted to being forced to undergo a virginity test.”
In 2017, the Oki faced a year imprisonment for defamation following an article published by the Timor Post published in 2016, which referred to the then Prime Minister of Timor Leste, Rui Maria de Araújo, in his previous role as advisor to the Minister for Finance. According to the article, Araújo recommended the winning bid for a project to supply and install computer equipment for the new Ministry of Finance building in 2014. In June 2017, a Dili judge dismissed all charges against Oki at the Dili Court.
The IFJ said: “The IFJ condemns the charges against Raimundos Oki and urges the Timor Leste authorities to respect press freedom. Governments must ensure journalists can do their jobs safely and securely, including holding public officials and authorities to account, without fear of prosecution. The repeated legal harassment of Oki is tantamount to persecution for publishing legitimate and independent reports in the public interest.”
Even though the IFJ and RSF have issued their statements, unfortunately the two Timor-Leste journalists' associations, namely the Timor-Leste Journalist Association (TLJA) and the Timor-Leste Press Union (TLPU) only feel normal. The two journalists' associations are still sleeping soundly and mute to this day.
