Anything concerning the Catholic Church is extremely sensitive in Timor-Leste, as Raimundos Oki, the editor of The Oekusi Post website can confirm, reports the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Oki 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 the capital Dili on June 30.

“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.”

• READ MORE: Other reports on Raimundos Oki
• The Richard Daschbach case
• Timor-Leste media freedom

The article that Oki published in The Oekusi Post 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.

• Timor-Leste was ranked 17th out of 180 countries in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index, and is now higher than any Pacific Island nation.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

In a deeply Catholic country, accusations that an American priest abused dozens of children at an orphanage stunned many in East Timor.

So when independent journalist Raimundos Oki heard that a group of girls planned to sue authorities, claiming they had been subjected to unnecessary virginity tests as part of the criminal case, he knew he had to hear their story.

Oki published interviews with the girls on his news website, Oekusi Post, ahead of the trial of Richard Daschbach. The then 84-year-old American priest was jailed in December for 12 years for child abuse.

• READ MORE: Other reports about journalist Raimundos Oki
• Other reports on the Richard Daschbach case

But now Oki is under investigation himself, on accusations that he breached judicial secrecy.

The case is unexpected in East Timor. Also known as Timor-Leste, the country has one of the better records globally for press freedom.

Groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Human Rights Watch, however, note that the risk of legal proceedings and a media law with vague provisions that journalists “promote public interest and democratic order” could encourage self-censorship on some subjects, including accusations of abuse in the Catholic Church.

Call from police
Oki learned that he was under investigation when police called on June 29, ordering the journalist to report to a police station in Dili, the capital, the following day.

At the station, police informed Oki that the public prosecutor’s office had ordered an investigation into the journalist for allegedly “violating the secrets of the legal system.”

The investigation is connected to the reports Oki published in 2020 about a planned lawsuit against authorities. In it, the claimants alleged authorities subjected them to virginity tests while investigating claims of abuse against the priest.

In their lawsuit and in interviews with Oki, the claimants said they had told authorities they were not among the minors abused by the priest, but that authorities still forced them to undergo the invasive procedure.

“They wanted to share what they went through with the public,” Oki said. “As a journalist, it is my duty to share their stories with the world.”

At the time that his articles were published, the priest was still on trial. Oki said a police officer told him the judicial secrecy accusation was linked to Daschbach’s trial.

Authorities have not responded publicly to the lawsuit, which was filed in July 2021.

The public prosecutor’s office in Dili didn’t respond to VOA’s request for comment.

If convicted, Oki could face up to six years in prison.

‘Public interest’
Both the journalist and his lawyer, Miguel Faria — who also defended Daschbach in his trial — deny that Oki breached judicial secrecy, citing public interest as a justification for publishing the interviews.

“Cases of forced virginity tests are considered public interest, and it is very important for the public to know what happened to these victims,” Faria said.

The lawyer said that in this case, “the victims speak firsthand about their experiences”.

Judicial secrecy laws are often enforced to ensure the right to a fair trial or to prevent the risk of a jury being influenced by reporting. UNICEF and others also have guidelines for coverage of child abuse and trials to prevent minors being identified or retraumatised.

Rick Edmonds, a media analyst at the Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said that in some countries, interviewing witnesses during or even shortly before a trial takes place can jeopardise the trial or provide grounds for appeal if the jury was not entirely sequestered.

Daniel Bastard, Asia-Pacific director at RSF, said that prosecutors should consider some legal arguments, including that the girls’ testimonies were published during Daschbach’s trial.

But, he said, “from a press freedom point of view, we need to look at the bigger picture on this issue and think about the public interest.

“I think the very key in this case is the idea of public interest. In a functional democracy, there can be some debate between the necessity of judicial secrecy and the need for the public to know exactly what is at stake,” Bastard told VOA.

Showing the suffering
Oki said his objective was to show the suffering the girls went through. At the time, he said, the media focus was the trial of the priest and not the experiences of minors, who say they went through unnecessary procedures while the case was investigated.

“Forced virginity test is a violation of basic human rights,” he said. “This practice is against every international norm of human rights.”

The reporter said authorities didn’t need to carry out such tests to build a case against the former priest.

The United Nations has called for so-called virginity tests to be banned, saying the procedure is both unscientific and “a violation of human rights.”

Parker Novak, a Washington-based expert on East Timor, believes Oki’s case is controversial because it touches on the role of the church in the Timorese society.

“There is a reluctance in the Timorese media, in the Timorese society, to report critically on influential institutions and leaders,” he told VOA.

The Catholic Church is arguably the most influential institution in the Timorese society, he said.

“So certainly, any reporting that can be perceived as critical of the church, even if that reporting is wholly justified, whereas this case probably was, it’s still seen as taboo within the Timorese society, and that’s what causes controversy,” Novak added.

Closed trial
East Timor is said to contain the highest percentage of Catholics outside Vatican City, and the priest, Daschbach, was a revered figure in the community who had the support of former President Xanana Gusmao, who attended the sentencing.

The Associated Press reported that Daschbach’s trial was closed to the public and that some witnesses complained of being threatened.

A US federal grand jury in Washington later indicted the priest for illicit sexual contact in a foreign place and wire fraud.

Oki has faced legal action previously for his reporting. In 2017, the journalist was accused of criminal defamation over a 2015 article published in the Timor Post about then-Prime Minister Rui Maria de Araujo.

Charges in that case were later dropped, but Oki believes the case against him this time is more complicated.

“If they want to politicise it, then I believe they will imprison me,” Oki said.

“However, if they look at the story, which was published last year along with several videos, they will see that there is no wrongdoing.”