Experts says broadcasting bill too restrictive
JAKARTA (JP): Noted mass communications expert Abdul Muis was so dismayed with the government's bill on broadcasting that he advised the House of Representatives yesterday against its further deliberation.
"If I may use the expression, this bill is really a mess," Muis said, adding that "too much control betrays the basic communication principles".
During a private hearing with the Golkar faction of the House yesterday, the Hasanuddin University professor said the House should return the bill to the government for redrafting.
The problem, he told the representatives, was that the bill focuses too much on control but provides no guarantees on freedom of expression.
Legislation should achieve a correct balance between the need to regulate and the need to protect people's rights, he said.
The House this month began deliberation on the government- sponsored bill on broadcasting. If enacted, it will be the first time that Indonesia has a legal framework within which the burgeoning broadcasting industry would be required to operate.
Currently, broadcasters operate under various government regulations. In the case of news broadcasting, the regulation gives the state-run television network TVRI and its sister, radio RRI, a complete monopoly which requires private stations to relay their productions.
Abdul Muis is not the first to criticize the bill. Broadcast executives have also said that the legislation, if passed, would be even more restrictive than the existing system.
The Golkar faction, the dominant group in the house, yesterday invited two mass communication experts to give their assessments of the bill. The other expert was Yaumil Agus Akhir of the University of Indonesia.
Muis questioned, for example, the article that prohibits political or religious groups from establishing their own networks. "This is taking us back to the authoritarian concepts widely used in 16th century," he said.
"We should look at the content of the programs rather than who owns the networks," he said.
Muis also objected to the article in the bill which states that broadcasters must obtain a separate permit from the government to produce and air news.
"A permit is similar to censorship," he said.
The bill has gone further than the current restriction on the Indonesian press, which only requires a publishing permit but does not require a separate permit for printing the news, he noted.
He said this limitation on broadcasting is not consistent with the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
Yaumil criticized the bill on broadcasting for not protecting the audience enough, particularly young people.
"There's not a single article in the bill which talks about protecting the children," she said, adding that she was particularly concerned about the negative impact of television on children.
"Without such protection, the culture of violence and free sex which appears on television will affect family lives," she said.
Yaumil said commercial networks, because of fierce competition for ratings, have a tendency to show programs that contain violence and promote free sex, in the absence of any firm law.
She cited Beverly Hills 90210, which one private station airs every Sunday afternoon, as an example of a program which promotes the culture of promiscuity among the young people. "I wonder why this program was passed by the censor board?" she asked. (01)