Media criticized for bowing to threats, pressures

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Members of the national media were roundly criticized on Wednesday for so easily succumbing to threats or pressure at the expense of press freedom.

Chairman of the Indonesian Press Council Atmakusumah Astraatmadja urged the media to stand up to the intimidation if they valued their independence.

"Most of our media just tend to avoid trouble," said Atmakusumah, a journalist with the now defunct but outspoken daily Indonesia Raya.

Atmakusumah was speaking during a press conference held by the Liberal Islam Network -- a loose coalition of free-thinking Muslims groups -- which criticized two television stations for withdrawing their advertisements entitled "Colorful Islam".

Private channels RCTI and SCTV ceased to broadcast the ads after complaints by the Muslim organization Majelis Mujahiddin who claimed the ad's message was somehow an insult to Islam.

The seemingly benign ad showed a circumcision ceremony in which Muslim families attended wearing various traditional ethnic clothes, while several women sang peace songs and children played.

A director at the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace, a member of the Liberal Islam Network, Ulil Abshar-Abdalla said on Wednesday the advertisement was aimed at showing different expressions of Islam that have emerged during the reform era.

He said both RCTI and SCTV might consider rephrasing the term Colorful Islam to which the Mujahiddin group objected, but added this was no solution.

Earlier this month, state-owned television station TVRI broadcast its apology for depicting House Speaker Akbar Tandjung as a defendant in a graft case to illustrate a speech by President Megawati Soekarnoputri about her government's combat against corruption. The apology was demanded by executives of the Golkar Party, which Akbar chairs.

"If the public disagrees (to certain content) there must be ways of solving that, or if not, responding to it," Atmakusumah added.

"They (the public) can use their right to respond ... while others may go straight to the court, both are valid."

However, it is wrong to respond by means of violence, verbal or physical threats, he added.

Indonesia's press has been called, in legal terms at least, one of the most open in the world since the fall of Soeharto's iron-fisted regime in 1998.

Nonetheless, public critics have emerged due to what press observers said was a lack of attention to press ethics among media exploiting sensationalism and soft pornography.

At the same time, the media has often come under pressure from groups affiliated to religious organizations or political parties.

Groups linked to the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) exercised pressure against the press on seven separate occasions in the year 2000.

In that year, Indonesia was led by President Abdurrahman Wahid, the former chairman of NU. Abdurrahman came frequently under fire by the media, prompting angry responses from NU's youth wing, Banser. In one incident, militant Banser members ransacked East Java's largest paper Java Pos for reporting on collusion practices within NU.

NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi later ordered Banser to stop such actions.

Atmakusumah said everyone might understand the value of press freedom, but the public and the media must learn to handle it if they want to maintain this independence.

"Both the press and the public are still learning the value of the public's freedom of expression, which is the basis of press freedom," he said.

He added that both sides needed to learn from each other on how to present news, advertisements and other content.