Banned magazines

The Japanese media have reported the recent revocation of licenses of Indonesia's Tempo, Editor and DeTIK magazines and the arrest of people who took to the street to protest the ban.

We have subscribed to the Tempo magazine since the early 1980s, for our source of study on Indonesia, in our research institution. We consider the articles published in the magazine good and very useful for our study on the social, economic and cultural phenomena of Indonesia. Without these materials we have difficulty obtaining information on what is happening in Indonesian society. This will in turn hamper our program of cooperation between scholars and higher-learning institutions of the two countries.

We, therefore, deplore the banning of the magazines mentioned above.

TERUO SEKIMOTO

HIROYOSHI KANO

University of Tokyo