New York-based CPJ asks RI to encourage press freedom
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has been asked to revive its commitment to press freedom following its decision to reject an Australian journalist's application for renewal of his visa.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a letter to President Megawati Soekarnoputri dated March 18, said the decision was effectively banning Lindsay Murdoch from working as a correspondent in Jakarta.
"This is a clear attempt to punish Murdoch for writing stories that criticize government policies," CPJ said in the letter signed by its executive director Ann K. Cooper.
Murdoch, who works for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, said on Sunday he had been told that two articles in particular led to the ban by an interdepartmental committee.
One was about how East Timorese children had been taken from refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor and left in orphanages on Java island. Another told how soldiers in a village in Aceh province killed a four-month-old baby in May by pouring boiling water over it.
"To the best of our knowledge, Indonesian authorities have not denied that these incidents occurred," CPJ said in its letter to Megawati urging her to reverse the decision.
"They should not be expelling a reporter for bringing such abuses to light."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied the allegations that it is discouraging press freedom and said that it, like other countries, was under no obligation to explain the reason for the issuance or non-issuance of a visa.
CPJ said that the refusal to grant Murdoch a visa undermined Indonesia's commitment to press freedom, which regained ground in the country following the fall of the three-decade-long authoritarian regime under Soeharto in May 1998.
"Following Soeharto's ouster in 1998, one of the most sweeping and positive changes in Indonesia was the establishment of a free press," CPJ said.
The international organization also asked Megawati to disband any government committee that seeks to censor or judge the work of journalists in Indonesia.
Also protesting the ban was the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), who described the government move as "an obvious violation of and threat to press freedom".
AJI said the incident would enforce self-censorship among foreign and local journalists, which would only taint the image of Megawati's government.
"What the present government is doing now is a repetition of the policy of the Soeharto government, which often banned critical foreign media from entering the country," AJI said in a statement signed by its chairwoman Ati Nurbaiti and secretary- general Solahudin,
State Minister for Information and Communication Syamsul Mu'arif said he had not been informed about the foreign ministry's refusal to renew Murdoch's working visa.
"I will clarify this matter during the coming Cabinet meeting (on Thursday). But I hope what has happened in Murdoch's case does not represent the government's attempt to control the media," he said on the sidelines of a hearing with the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
He said he was considering establishing a clearing house in his office to tackle specific matters, including the action taken against Murdoch.