Media criticized for bowing to threats, pressures

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.