Gloomy year for RI media as big guns try to sink it

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A year of living dangerously for the press here was signaled early last year when well-connected businessman Tomy Winata filed a criminal complaint with the police against Tempo magazine over an article published in February 2003.

This was the first of a number of attacks on press freedom during the course of the year.

In January, the South Jakarta District Court ruled against Koran Tempo daily and ordered it to pay US$1 million in damages to well-connected businessman Tomy, who filed a libel suit against the newspaper.

This court decision marked the pinnacle of a bitter and protracted legal battle between PT Tempo Inti Media, the publisher of both Koran Tempo and Tempo weekly, over an article titled "Ada Tomy di Tenabang" (Is Tomy in Tanah Abang), which was published in February 2003 and which insinuated that the businessman had a hand in setting the largest textile market in Southeast Asia on fire.

Days after the article was published, a group of Tomy supporters besieged the Tempo offices on Jl. Proklamasi and assaulted a number of journalists.

More than a year after the attack and after going through lengthy court proceedings, a panel of three judges of the Central Jakarta District Court sentenced Tempo weekly's chief editor Bambang Harymurti on September to one year in prison for publishing an "untrue" article and "defaming" Tomy.

The judges acquitted two other Tempo journalists of all charges, reasoning that they were not responsible for the publication of the defamatory material.

Bambang was found guilty of violating Article 14 (1) of the Criminal Code for deliberately disseminating rumors and publishing an erroneous report that could provoke public disorder. He could have faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Tempo was not the only media group which has been attacked.

Early in January, then minister of trade and industry, Rini MS Soewandi, filed a criminal complaint with the police against the entire board of 16 editors of national daily Rakyat Merdeka for running a story saying that Rini arranged a counter-trade deal with the Russian government during a striptease show.

Still in January, the then National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief A.M. Hendropriyono filed a similar complaint against the daily's executive director, Teguh Santosa, after it ran an article stating that four big-wig politicians had initiated a protest aimed at toppling the government.

Later in May, the Central Jakarta District Court fined Trust, a financial and law magazine, Rp 1 billion (US$112,360) after it found that the magazine had defamed the director of PT Petindo Perkasa, John Hamenda, who was said by the magazine to have defrauded state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) through a bogus loan scheme.

The sad fact about this court decision was that Hamenda had once been arrested by police for his alleged involvement in the Rp 1.7 trillion scandal. He was later released for lack of evidence.

If a publication can be shackled by a former suspect in a criminal case, it will be easier for those with power, be it political or financial, to hinder the press as it tries to uncover and reveal the web of corruption that has tied up Indonesia.

An even sadder fact was that all of the publications, except Koran Tempo were found guilty of violating the provisions of the Criminal Code on libel despite the fact that a special law has been passed to regulate it in the form of the Press Law (No. 40/1999).

The Criminal Code contains 35 articles that can be used for the prosecution of journalists in connection with their work.

The existence of these outdated provisions, and the killings of and physical attacks on journalists, pose a serious threat to press freedom in this country, the Reporters sans Frontiers group said in its annual report released last October.

Indonesia was ranked by the organization as 117th out of 167 countries in the third annual worldwide press freedom index, a drop from 57th place the previous year.

Champions of press freedom have lamented this situation, saying that it indicated that most Indonesians were incapable of properly respecting press freedom and took such freedom for granted even after the media was muffled for 30 years under the New Order regime.

"They hate it if the media disturbs their comfortable lives. They are not aware that publishing negative news is also one of the main duties of the media -- part of its social control function," former Press Council chairman Atmakusumah says.

In the face of a lack of concern about press freedom and the Press Law, the present Press Council chairman, political science professor Ichlasul Amal, called on the police and prosecutors to use the Press Law when dealing with media-related cases.

However, the threat against press freedom could also serve as a wake-up call to journalists to embark on a process of soul- searching to ascertain what has gone wrong with journalism in the country.

Journalists here are notorious for taking bribes from their sources, referred to by the euphemism "envelope journalism". Reporters in the field are often lax about checking their facts, which leads to inaccurate and poor quality reporting.

These failings have made the media an easy target for attack Thus, there is no other way for journalists but to abide by the journalistic code of ethics and improve their professionalism.