No foreign films dubbed by October

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Information R. Hartono has ordered all television stations in the country to stop airing foreign programs that are dubbed into the Indonesian language by October.

All foreign TV programs instead should be dubbed into English, Hartono said yesterday as reported by Antara.

"At least by October, stations should stop airing foreign non- English language programs that are dubbed into Bahasa Indonesia," he was quoted by the news agency as saying.

Chinese and Indian movies -- both popular among Indonesian TV audiences -- must be dubbed into English, he said.

Also increasing in popularity are Latin soap operas, known as telenovela, which have been dubbed into Indonesian from Spanish.

Exempted from the ruling are foreign programs that use Malay- based language, such as films from Malaysia, the minister said.

Hartono said the ruling on using English instead of Indonesian was intended to minimize the intrusion of foreign cultures through TV programs.

The ruling would also apply to films shown at movie theaters and on rented videos, he said.

The government had earlier planned to have TV stations dub all foreign programs, including those in English, into Indonesian, citing the successful practice of Thailand and most European countries in dubbing American-made movies.

The plan was dropped in the face of opposition from the public and TV stations. (emb)