'No guarantee of press freedom in Constitution'

'No guarantee of press freedom in Constitution'

JAKARTA (JP): The 1945 Constitution does not specifically
guarantee freedom of the press in Indonesia, leading mass
communication expert Ashadi Siregar said yesterday.

Article 28 of the Constitution, which is considered the
cornerstone of press freedom, refers to the supervision of
freedom of expression through laws and does not explicitly
guarantee such rights, Ashadi said.

Article 28 reads: "The freedom of association and assembly, of
expressing thought and of issuing writings and the like, shall be
prescribed by statutes."

"With that, the provisions in Article 28 of the 1945
Constitution do not have any meaning unless there is already an
existing statute which regulates the freedom to associate and
assemble along with the right to express one's thoughts both
orally and through writing," Ashadi contended.

The lecturer at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University's School
of Political and Social Sciences said that article 28 differs
from other articles which ensure specific rights of the people.

As an example he described article 27 and 29 of the
Constitution.

Article 27 reads that "without exception" all citizens have
equal positions before the law and government, while Article 29
says the state "shall guarantee" religious rights.

"It is unfortunate that the founders of our republic, despite
themselves using the press as a means to fight for independence,
did not explicitly insert the right of citizens to express and
acquire information," Ashadi said during a two-day seminar on
"Reconstructing the Goals of Our Republic" at the Indonesian
Institute of Sciences.

Speakers and commentators at the seminar said that the wording
of the article was a compromise for those who drafted the
Constitution and who thought that an explicit elaboration of
press freedom would transform the country into a liberal state.

Legislation

The current press legislation is regulated in the 1982 law,
which, according to Ashadi, "opens gaps allowing the state
bureaucracy to impose its will."

Fikri Jufri, the former chief editor of the banned Tempo
weekly, commented that it is imperative to pass legislation which
protects the press from forced closures and bannings.

"As long as none is in existence, we can't talk about freedom
of the press," said Fikri.

Tempo, along with two other publications -- DeTik and Editor
-- had their publishing licenses revoked by the government last
year for "editorial and administrative reasons".

Fikri stated that there has never been press freedom in
Indonesia. He recalled that in the late 1960s and 1970s
there was a tendency to stifle press freedom, pointing to the
mass bannings of several publications in 1974.

If the government is discontent with the press, they should
take legal action against the publications in question and not
ban or revoke their licenses, he said. "One thing that has to be
guaranteed by legislation is that no matter what happens it (a
publication) cannot be killed."

He reasoned that no matter how harsh or critical a newspaper
is, it can rarely threaten the survival of a government or topple
its leaders.

The only extraordinary case was in the United States when the
Watergate scandal exposed by the American press led to the
resignation of then President Richard Nixon in 1974, he said.

According to Fikri, Indonesian officials are often too
sensitive and cannot accept criticism. "As long as our officials
are still that sensitive, don't talk about press freedom or
democracy," he said.

Ashadi similarly commented on the declining level of tolerance
against the press. "The political room to maneuver provided by
the state bureaucracy is shrinking...People get offended very
easily," he remarked. (mds)