MPR scuttles press freedom

By Atmakusumah

This is the second of two articles on the aborted attempt by Indonesian journalists to ensure press freedom in the country.

JAKARTA (JP): The 1,000-strong People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) concluded its Special Session without taking the opportunity to contemplate the meaning of the tireless efforts of the press community and the public at large to shed the chains that have shackled press freedom for the past 254 years.

Nevertheless, some proposals from the Indonesian Press Society (MPI) did go into the MPR decree on human rights.

The proposals come under Section VI: The Right of Freedom to Information. Article 20: Every person has a right to communicate and obtain information to develop one's individual self and social environment. Article 21: Every person has the right to seek, obtain, own, store, process and disseminate information by all available channels.

Also under Section X: Protection and Advancement, which contains Article 42: The right of citizens to communicate and to obtain information is guaranteed and protected.

Now is the right time for Indonesia to shed the shackles that bind press freedom, especially when neighboring countries and the international community recognize that press freedom in Indonesia has blossomed since Soeharto stepped down as president on May 21.

This recognition apparently has motivated a number of press organizations from North America and Thailand -- which has gained press freedom -- to invite the participation of independent press organizations from Indonesia and the Philippines in the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).

SEAPA was set up at a Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 meeting in Bangkok. Its secretariat is scheduled to be inaugurated in the city on May 3, 1999 coinciding with World Press Freedom Day. The aim of SEAPA is to promote and protect press freedom in Southeast Asia and to monitor threats to journalists and press freedom in the nine countries of ASEAN and Cambodia. The effort to maintain the press freedom now enjoyed by Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia hopefully could encourage press freedom in other Southeast Asian countries as well.

The objective of SEAPA is similar to the program of the Committee to Protect Indonesian Journalists the MPI set up in Jakarta on Nov. 4. The committee intends to help in overcoming constraints news people face in their journalistic work in the field as part of their public service.

The problems in press freedom and the flow of information have drawn greater attention from mass media practitioners of Southeast Asia today. In an Oct. 29 to Oct. 31 meeting at Subic Freeport, the Philippines, journalists from nine Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, focused on the obstacles to a free press. These include state control, media ownership concentration, repressive legislation, licensing and physical threats.

The participants of that meeting urged journalists to "expose infringements on press freedom and develop mechanisms to protect journalists". They also stated: "We see the need, in particular, to expose the complete lack of press and other freedoms in Myanmar."

The Subic conferees underscored that "at a time of crisis and rapid change in Southeast Asia, a free press plays an increasingly crucial role to inform citizens".

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, at the SEAPA founding conference in Bangkok, stressed that such issues as greater transparency, openness, human rights and press freedom would dominate the agenda of Southeast Asian societies well into the next century. He is convinced that a free press is the best guarantee for sustaining reform and forcing accountability in the public and private sectors.

Newspapers are owned by individuals and corporations, but freedom of the press belongs to the people, Surin said. "It is therefore the duty of each member of society not only to safeguard the freedom of the press, but also to ensure the safety of its practitioners."

In Surin's view, "freedom is indivisible. It is all or none."

The writer is a former managing editor of Indonesia Raya, a crusading daily the Soeharto government banned in 1974. He is now executive director of the Jakarta-based Dr. Soetomo Press Institute. The above article is translated by Warief Djajanto; the Indonesian version appears in D&R (Detektif dan Romantika) weekly magazine on Tuesday.