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

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.