Talk:Murder of Udin/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Mark Arsten (talk · contribs) 19:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll do the review, comments to follow within the next day or two. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Lead
 * I'm not sure the bolding is needed here {MOS:BOLDTITLE)
 * "with several independent inquiries concluding" Not a big deal, but WP:PLUSING constructions should be minimized, if possible.
 * Reworded


 * "is expected to be unprosecutable after 2014" This seems to imply some uncertainty, is this the case?
 * Bottom of the article has "could be declared "expired"", source says "AJI also said they feared the police would close the case as the Criminal Code stipulated investigators could declare a case had “expired” and close the possibility of reopening the case after 12 years for crimes with punishments of more than three years and 18 years for crimes punishable to life imprisonment or the death sentence.". Seems to be possible that it could be extended.


 * Lead seems a little short at first glance, but I haven't read the whole article yet.


 * Journalism
 * The first paragraph isn't really about Journalism, maybe change the section title to "Early life and journalism"?
 * How about "life and journalism"?


 * "he would also take his own pictures." I'd suggest something like "take pictures to illustrate his articles" so it doesn't sound like he's taking pictures of himself :)
 * Stealing your wording :-)


 * "Aside from his reporting, Udin and his wife Marsiyem owned a small store" Do we know when he married? Maybe note that in the previous paragraph.
 * I think I saw that in the Invisible Palace when I first read it. I'll take a look
 * Alright, p 44 "... twenty-nine-year-old Marsiyem". pp 48-49 have "Krisna was his eldest: a daughter born eight years earlier... Marsiyem had dated Udin for about two years before their marriage. ... [When they first started dating,] she had been a high-school student, and Udin a novice journalist and Bernas distribution agent." This suggests that they had been married for about 9 to 11 years. Not explicitly stated though. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * "Marsiyem would usually deal with the store." Is there a better phrase than "deal with" to use here, maybe "manage" or "operate"?
 * I like "manage"


 * What is the "Legal Aid Institute"
 * Added the Indonesian name as well. Website here; doesn't seem necessary to expand on what they do considering their name.


 * Maybe condense the last two paragraphs here. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Combined.


 * Thanks for picking this up. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Murder
 * Nothing that really jumps out at me here.
 * I have reservations about the usage of the term murder throughout this article. We read, the victim was attacked by unidentified assailants and an autopsy was performed. My question: who has been murdered? Murder is pronounced by a court of law, a medical examiner, or coroner. Nothing like this has been mentioned here. In it's current state the article does not meet GA criteria. Some changes need to be done to draw out the issues that someone was killed but no conclusion of murder has been reached. Mootros (talk) 02:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't really agree. The term "murder" is often used to mean an act of deliberate killing of another human. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:43, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mark, and would add that the article's sources appear to universally refer to this as a "murder", as did the police and the several independent investigations. If you feel a policy requires to use a different word than all of our sources, though, I'd be happy to read it over and reconsider. Khazar2 (talk) 02:50, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess we have to go with what the reliable sources say! Mark Arsten (talk) 03:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * What does the source say? Who decides whether it was deliberated or not? Mootros (talk) 03:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Please note, that the police may have indeed launched a "murder inquiry", as they suspect that Udin was murdered, but it not make it murder as such. The title needs to reflect this. Mootros (talk) 03:33, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, really, you can just click on any footnote in the article. The Jakarta Post regularly referred to it as a "murder"., as did the journalist organization Committee to Protect Journalists , Amnesty International, academic work about the case,, etc. The police likewise called it a murder from the beginning and even brought a man to trial for it. Not sure what their individual standards are, but the case appears to meet universally them without dissent. I'm not being snarky in my above request, though; if it's common practice for Wikipedia to overrule the common term on this and use a term of our own, I'll be happy to review that policy. What standard do you feel is reasonable? Khazar2 (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * All we read in the Post is about a "murder case" so far I can see. Please note, that the police may have indeed launched a "murder inquiry", as they suspect that Udin was murdered, but it not make it murder as such. The title needs to reflect this. Mootros (talk) 03:35, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with stating that the "Committee to Protect Journalists" thinks this was murder, despite that they actually head their article "Journalists Killed |  Indonesia", but I don't think you should base the tenor of the article on this assumption by implying that some conclusion about whether the killing was debilitated has been reached for all parties. Mootros (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't follow, what do you mean when you say the article is "implying that some conclusion about whether the killing was debilitated has been reached for all parties"? Mark Arsten (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If you say murder that means it was deliberate (as you said). Someone (like the police or a prosecutor) suspecting it was deliberate does not make deliberate. All there is, is (undoubtedly an overwhelming) suspicion. But it remains merely a suspicion, that only a court of law, a medical examiner, a coroner, or in exceptional situations an legislative act, can free us from, by making it a fact. The article needs to reflect this that we are dealing with suspicions here: to make it GA. Mootros (talk) 04:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I see now, there was a typo in your comment. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, you might read on, Mootros, to the first sentence of the first article I linked. =) "Fifteen years on, the mystery shrouding the murder of journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafrudin, aka Udin, has yet to be lifted." Not "suspected murder," not killing, just plain murder. I'd also point you to the academic source I linked, which describes Udin's killing as "the first and most dramatic murder" in a series of journalist murders. I'll bow out after this regardless and let Crisco or Mark answer, but per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OR, I don't think we ought to overrule an apparently unanimous consensus of sources to put our own title on (whatever that might be).
 * Listen, I'd just ask that you take a moment to read a little bit of at least a few of the article's sources before commenting further. If you find them more commonly using phrasing like "suspected murder" and the like, I'm certainly game for hearing alternative proposals for title, etc. I'm just uncomfortable with the idea of substituting our judgement for theirs; it feels awfully original research-y to me. Khazar2 (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of the articles do not state murder at all. Others say murder when quoting a police officer, who talks about the murder inquiry. Mootros (talk) 04:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Some academic making a pronouncement that he thinks that it was murder should explicitly be stated in the article, but it is specific point of view that stands in contrast to the lack of a legal verdict from a court of law or a medical examiner. I ask you whether you would like to base the tenor of the article on this. If this is the case I have voiced by reservations here about this article and will leave it with this. However, I will object to GA status because in my opinion the article is not neutral. Mootros (talk) 04:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, if reliable sources (such as these academics) describe an event as a "murder"--I think we should use their terminology. This may be a case of verifiability, not truth. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You are following a specific point of view that is in direct conflict with the widely established meaning of the word "murder". Mootros (talk) 04:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The point of view that I'm following is the one of the reliable sources that discuss this case. Now, you can believe what you want to about the case--and you may actually be right. But saying that the sources are "wrong" isn't enough to get things changed. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You are following a specific point of view of a Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and a researcher of Culture and Communications that is in direct conflict with the widely established meaning of the word "murder" in it sense as legal terminology. I am saying the source is not neutral or relevant to make such a pronouncement. Mootros (talk) 04:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to engage you constructively here, Mootros, but you're making it pretty difficult. It appears to me that a Indonesia's largest Eng-lang newspaper, multiple academic commentators, police, the victim's wife, several journalist organizations, the major book on the case, and a Nobel-Prize-winning human rights organization have all referred to this as "murder". An Indonesian judge even referred to the killing as a murder in a related trial over the evidence handling, if that helps. Is it possible you're using a murder definition of your home country that might not apply globally? I just don't follow the argument you're making. You're focusing on the academic source in isolation, but there's many more sources here. Are you arguing that we didn't follow the sources properly, and if so, can you point us more specifically to the dissenting sources that we missed? And if we're not supposed to follow the wording of our sources in this case, can you point us to the policy that requires us to have a different definition of "murder" than journalists, police, academia, and human rights organizations? Again, I'd be happy to hear suggestions for alternative phrasings, etc., if you can demonstrate that it better represents the sources. But for now I'm at a bit of a loss. Khazar2 (talk) 04:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the source. It says murder case. I have not doubted this. However, I doubt that my view of murder is specific to a country. If you read here, it says unlawful killing. I doubt weather social scientists, police officers, journalists can make such a decisions whether it was unlawful or deliberate. I think this article is not neutral. A lot of good work has been done, but it misses the point by following irrelevant sources for the curial part, in my opinion. The source for the legal terminology of murder is a legal verdict. But there is none. If you think that you use the word "murder" in some collegial way that does not refer to the legal term, I would advice you to find a better word. Mootros (talk) 05:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I'd ask you to read again the source I just linked, please--you only need to go as far as the third sentence. =) Unless I'm misreading, the judge says "a few days after the murder took place" in referring to the killing. No ambiguity, no "suspected murder", no "murder investigation", no "killing of unknown legality"--murder.
 * Look, you seem to have been around long enough to know how Wikipedia works. If you feel there's a significant proportion of people who don't consider this murder, you need to cite sources to demonstrate that. We can address it as a minority view, or if it's approaching significance, we can find a more neutral title. But we can agree that right now this article is an accurate summary of the way the killing has been described in academia, journalism, human rights research, and even by an Indonesian judge ruling on a related case, right? I'm happy to work with you on including any dissenting sources you have, but I'm uncomfortable with rejecting the near-universal description of this case in favor of your personally researched definitions.Khazar2 (talk) 05:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

My first suggestion is to called this article Killing of Udin. Alternative, you may called it the Unsolved murder of Udin. Next you need to look at each instance throughout this article whether you can justify the word murder or whether you might need a qualification such as suspected or murder investigation. In some cases, it will be fine, for example saying that academics or campaigners have called this murder. It makes the article infinitely stronger —by explaining all this— rather than falling back to some ill-conceived use of a legal term that gives the flavour of some specific agenda of having a point of view. Mootros (talk) 05:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC) PS: On a side note, I personally think, it was murder. But that's not really relevant. Mootros (talk) 05:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I firmly believe that the use of "murder" in this article is supported by reliable sources, and per WP:V is what we should use. If there were any doubt about motive or premeditation, Killing of Udin would perhaps be acceptable. However, none of the sources even suggest anything other than a premeditated murder; the police investigated it as such, the press received it as such, and Sumaji was tried for murder. When sources are in agreement that it was a murder, changing it to Killing would be OR and/or misrepresentative Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, note that our article on Unlawful killing indicates that it is a term in English law, which has not had a very significant (direct) role in the development of Indonesian criminal law. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, if you are saying that our article murder has a distinct slant towards common law. If however, you are saying that murder in Indonesian law is indifferent about intention in terms of murder, I would frankly be puzzled. Yet, the main question —who decides according to Indonesian criminal law, whether it is murder or not— remains? Mootros (talk) 05:45, 18 April 2012 (UTC) Mootros (talk) 05:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Motive? All need motive. I was indicating that the legal verdict of unlawful killing, based on our article, is primarily in English law. Sources indicate that this case was a murder, and as such we should follow suit. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I am saying that these sources are not suitable for supporting the usage of the specific legal term murder. Who decides according to Indonesian criminal law, whether it is murder or not? 06:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like we have consensus here to keep it at murder. I'd prefer if additional discussion of this topic take place on the talk page rather than the GA review. Mark Arsten (talk) 05:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I have made my point clear. If that's what you want, than it will be called like this. I am afraid, this (actually quite good article) does not meet GA status. With best wishes, Mootros (talk) 06:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

To reiterate one last time, Mootros, an Indonesian judge presiding over a related case called this murder in her/his official statement on the case. Surely this meets even the stringent "direct quotation from legal authority in Indonesia" requirement you're setting here. You keep arguing that we don't understand Indonesian criminal law as clearly as you do, and maybe that's true. But surely we can agree that none of us here understand as well as an Indonesian judge speaking in an official capacity? Khazar2 (talk) 15:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not an expert on Indonesian criminal law, but I don't think that a judge remarking something in one case (of concealing legal evidence) can be construed as a verdict about another case. "[In the trial on concealing legal evidence] Edy confessed he had borrowed Udin's notebook from his relatives a few days after the murder took place" If you think that this statement means that the judge makes a formal pronouncement that Undi was murdered, I would like to look into this in more detail. I suggest we put this review on hold and review the original statement of the judge. There might be circumstances where a formal pronouncement could be made in a completely different case, especially if the tenor of this verdict (the concealing legal evidence) explicitly states that the deed of concealing of legal evidence has led to the collapse of the murder trail and therefore a conviction in the original murder case couldn't be secured, despite the overwhelming evidence that someone was murdered. If this is really the case, I would be happy to reconsider this. Mootros (talk) 03:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * At this point I don't think your concerns are actionable per WP:WIAGA. They may have some validity, so feel free to continue this on the talk page. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear Mark, I don't think it's the way forward to pass this article, despite the lack of consensus about its GA status. I have objected to it and if you think that does not matter. I have attached a tag, which would technically not make it stable anymore. Mootros (talk) 04:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Some more verifiable facts, article 340 of the Indonesian Penal Code (1982), defines murder as not only the killing of someone "with deliberate intent" (like manslaughter), but also being it "premeditated". Nothing like this is being mentioned. The problem with this article, I am trying to point out, is the ill-defined usage of legal terminology that give a distinct impression of being not neutral. I think that calling it murder is neither factually accurate nor neutral. 04:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Investigation and cause célèbre
 * "the police began by collecting Udin's notes and blood from his family." This is somewhat ambiguous, did they collect his blood from family members?
 * I'll explain a bit more


 * 'Udin's death swiftly became a national "cause célèbre"' Not sure we need the quotes here.
 * Agreed


 * "The committee eventually focused on the bribery allegations against Sudarmo, as those were the only ones exclusive to Bernas, as well as a case of election rigging." This reads a bit awkward to me for some reason.
 * How's this?


 * "Udin's death swiftly became a national "cause célèbre".[9] The circumstances of his death and the resulting investigation were covered extensively in national media.[9]" Could probably combine these two sentences.
 * Combined.


 * "Prayer services held by Bernas seven days after Udin's death attracted hundreds of mourners and saw several community leaders give speeches on politics and Udin's death" Were these interfaith prayer services or from a specific religion? Do we know which religion Udin was? (not that it's a crucial detail)
 * Udin was Muslim, thought I had implied it but I guess not. There now, as is the kind of prayer service
 * Yes, you did not that his dad worked at a mosque--that does imply he was Muslim so I removed the next mention. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Just a suggestion, but maybe give the police investigation and the statements by NGOs separate paragraphs.
 * How's this?


 * "However, Sumaryani soon admitted to the press that she had been paid to fabricate this testimony." Did she say who paid her? Mark Arsten (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Added; a nephew of Sri Roso. I'm avoiding names for now per WP:BLP Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Arrest of Dwi Sumaji
 * "the murder was reportedly a revenge killing for Udin having an affair with Sumaji's wife Sunarti." There's got to be a better way to say this, I can't come up with one though.
 * How's this?


 * "Meanwhile, Sumaji's counsel and the White Kijang team located several witnesses to corroborate Sumaji's account, including the prostitute." I think this is the first we've heard of a prostitute.
 * Reorganised


 * Mishandling charges
 * You have the second mention of "Rp" linked here, but not the first.
 * Fixed


 * Trial of Sumaji
 * "After a failed attempt by the defense to question the court's jurisdiction, several witnesses were questioned over a period of several, including Udin's neighbours and wife, as well as Sudarmo's nephew." Missing a word?
 * Oops


 * We're switching between "defense" and "defence" here--gotta pick one and stick with it :)
 * Gone with Defence


 * "Further witnesses, including a key witness for the prosecution, were unconvincing and changed their stories." Not sure I like the use of "and", maybe try to make causation clearer here.
 * Clearer?


 * "One witness, who claimed to have participated in a sting operation to arrest Sumaji, was arrested for perjury, while an officer reported that he had pursued the driver based on instinct." What's the connection between the two here?
 * Oops. Clarified


 * "was contemptuous towards the defence and ordered several times to answer truthfully." Maybe note who ordered him here. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Clarified a bit; if you need the name I'll do it when I get back home.


 * Ok, finished my first read through, seems like pretty good work. I'll look over responses and references tomorrow. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Glad I missed the fury above... Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Links & dabs are OK. Mark Arsten (talk) 05:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The one image used in the article has a valid fair use claim. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Alright, after one last round of tweaking the prose, I'm now content to pass this as a GA. Good job everybody. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)