Red-letter day for the Southeast Asian press<\/p>\n
Roby Alampay, Bangkok<\/p>\n
The libel trial of Thai media advocate Supinya Klangnarong --
\nalong with two reporters and one newspaper editor -- starts in
\nBangkok on Sept. 6.<\/p>\n
Supinya's suggestion in a published article that a company
\npartly owned by the family of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
\nunfairly benefited from his term in office could lead to
\nimprisonment and a staggering US$10 million (Bt400 million) fine.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on the very same day that Supinya will be facing
\nmultimedia giant Shin Corp. in court, Indonesian courts 2,300
\nkilometers away will be concluding a similar case against
\nstaffers and editors of Tempo, one of Jakarta's leading
\nnewsmagazine. Tempo was summoned to court for saying that
\nbusinessman Tomy Winata -- a man who has significant ties to
\npolitical leaders in Indonesia -- stood to gain from a fire that
\ndestroyed a marketplace in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The confluence of dates is accidental and, indeed, the
\ncoincidence ends there -- but the cases are similar in every
\nother way. The interlacing political and business interests
\nbehind the suits, the extreme penalties that the plaintiffs are
\nseeking and the impact they will have on the region's media --
\nfar from being coincidental, they are all borne of the same
\ntroubling trend that threatens press freedom, and along with it
\ngovernment transparency, in the few democracies in Southeast
\nAsia.<\/p>\n
Since winning back its democracy in 1998, Indonesia has
\nenshrined freedom of the press, and has also put in place special
\nlaws intended precisely to deal with transgressions and
\nindiscretions of the media. The Press Law sets mechanisms for,
\namong other things, ensuring that aggrieved parties are accorded
\nfair play and the right to respond. More important, they allow
\nfor penalties and for the disciplining of irresponsible
\njournalists and media companies as a whole.<\/p>\n
Curiously, however, it is not the Press Law that is hanging
\nover Tempo's head. Instead, the magazine is being threatened with
\ncrippling fines and prison terms for its editor, Bambang
\nHarimurti, on the strength of dusted-off criminal laws originally
\nlaid down by Dutch colonizers to suppress dissent. Tempo's story
\non Tomy could provoke public unrest, the prosecution claims.<\/p>\n
In Thailand, the application of criminal laws to a
\njournalistic dispute, the threat of imprisoning Supinya for an
\nopinion based on substantial research into a valid conflict-of-
\ninterest question -- all these have the press troubled enough.
\nBut $10 million in damages?<\/p>\n
For journalists in both Jakarta and Bangkok, the issue here is
\nnot why the press is being questioned, but rather why it is being
\ntreated -- and being allowed to be treated -- with such lethal
\nintent.<\/p>\n
The operative word is \"allowed\". Why the Thai courts allowed
\nsuch a disproportionate claim to be filed is telling. That
\nIndonesia is allowing its own Press Law to become irrelevant --
\nwhile letting its blunt antiquated laws on dissent to again be
\nunsheathed -- suggests that this will not be the last time those
\nlaws will be used to taunt an already jittery media. It's
\ncertainly not the first time. Tomy Winata filed eight other
\nlawsuits against Tempo magazine last year. The daily Koran Tempo
\nlost a legal battle with Tomy in January and was ordered to pay a
\nrecord-setting $1 million in damages.<\/p>\n
Against this trend, the challenge by the region's newsmen to
\nthe Thai and Indonesian governments is to ensure that the spike
\nin harsh litigation against journalists does not in fact signal a
\nlarger wholesale attack on the press. More crucially, they demand
\nevidence that such reckless assaults on the Fourth Estate are not
\nin fact proxy wars waged on behalf of government itself.<\/p>\n
Singapore's elder leader Lee Kuan Yew -- who successfully sued
\nmighty Western papers with lucrative bases on his home turf -- is
\nthe region's most notorious and successful proponent of such
\nwars. Winning money, apologies and silence on Singaporean
\npolitics henceforth, Lee time and again exploited the Achilles
\nheel of the media in capitalist societies, demonstrating -- with
\nthe Asian Wall Street Journal no less -- that when you can
\nguarantee wins in your own court, the very suggestion of suing
\ncan be enough to make journalists back off.<\/p>\n
The Sept. 6 trial is dismaying for its suggestion that the
\ncurrent leaders of Southeast Asia's democracies would take their
\ncue from this man -- a fellow leader, but also their supposed
\nideological nemesis.<\/p>\n
Even more dangerous, Sept. 6 could represent a more insidious
\napproach with regard to how the powerful and sensitive in
\nSoutheast Asia can deal with an inconvenient and sometimes
\ntroublesome press.<\/p>\n
Why be the hands-on litigant when you can be the hands-off
\ngovernment shaking its head from the sidelines? Or, put another
\nway, why be disgraced Philippine President Joseph Estrada (who
\ntried to do a Lee by squeezing advertisers from The Manila Times
\nonly to end up turning the rest of the press and Manila's middle
\nclass against him)? Indeed, why be the bully when, with nothing
\nmore than your own nimble feet and somebody else's heavy hands,
\nyou can have the same coopted and preempted press without the
\npolitical fallout?<\/p>\n
When it comes to government's ability to defend or weaken the
\npress -- in court, against a private entity's litigation -- it is
\na fine line that separates political leaders' helplessness from
\nindifference. Especially when such litigation is becoming
\nhabitual on the part of the private sector, government, too,
\nbecomes suspect because it's another thin line that separates
\nindifference from complicity.<\/p>\n
In the Philippines, the third and only other democracy in
\nSoutheast Asia, six newsmen have been killed since January. While
\nseeking justice for the victims, journalists there are making the
\ncase that the rash of murders also betrays a \"culture of
\nimpunity\" among enemies of the press that the government has
\nallowed (that word again) to fester. They point out that not a
\nsingle person has been convicted or jailed for the murder of any
\nof the 54 newsmen killed in the Philippines since 1986.<\/p>\n
When it comes to killing journalists and transparency, in
\nother words, political and government leaders actually need not
\npull the trigger. They need only stand idly by and watch media
\noutfits incriminate themselves, pay lip service to press freedom,
\nand serve their own interests by chilling the press into
\nsubmission.<\/p>\n
The writer is executive director of the Southeast
\nAsian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Bangkok. He can be reached at
\nroby@seapabkk.org.<\/p>",
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