Expert warns against moves to gag freedom of the media

JAKARTA (JP): A senior media observer urged media workers and the public on Monday to keep an eye out for any moves that could curtail media freedom.

Dr. Soetomo Press Institute director Atmakusumah Astraatmadja said the newfound freedom enjoyed by mass media workers over the past six months "has reached a point of no return".

He said that while a return to media control of a degree similar to that under the previous government was unlikely, "the struggle for media freedom is not over yet".

"Legally, freedom has yet to be guaranteed," he said in a discussion on media freedom here.

Atmakusumah is one of dozens of media workers grouped in the recently formed Indonesian Press Society, which aggressively lobbied factions in the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to pass a decree on freedom of information during last week's Special Session.

Their hopes were only realized in the inclusion of a stipulation on citizen's rights to information in a decree on human rights. "There should have been a special decree guaranteeing media freedom," Atmakusumah said.

He argued against the notion that free mass media could become uncontrollable, using as an example the United States and Thailand where media freedom is constitutionally guaranteed.

Atmakusumah also urged media workers to continue to apply pressure to guarantee press freedom in the General Session of the People's Consultative Assembly planned for after next year's general election.

"Don't depend on a government official's liberal attitude (concerning media freedom)," warned Atmakusumah, a former journalist of the defunct Indonesia Raya daily. The daily was banned twice, both under the regimes of founding president Sukarno in the 1960s and Soeharto in the 1970s.

Minister of Information M. Yunus, an active Army lieutenant general, has much been credited for his "liberal" stance on the country's mass media compared to years of suppression.

According to Atmakusumah, today's newfound media freedom was a fruit of people's struggle, chiefly of media workers, over the past 254 years. Quoting press history records, he said suppression of the press dated back to a time when a newspaper was first published in Indonesia.

The much-cited press "honeymoon" in the country, from 1965 to 1974, Atmakusumah said, was actually unfounded.

"There was no press banning that time, but leftist newspapers were barred from publishing," he argued.

He warned media workers and the public to monitor the development of a mass media draft bill currently being worked on by the government.

Atmakusumah revealed that the current government-sponsored draft of a media bill contained at least 13 articles that empower the government to control the media through regulations.

The Press Society has drafted its own bill in an attempt to prevent the government-drafted bill being passed by the House of Representatives. (aan)