No reference for ban of 'Tempo': Press Council

No reference for ban of 'Tempo': Press Council

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Press Council, the country's mass
media watchdog, did not recommend that the government ban Tempo
magazine in June last year, according to the testimony of one of
its executives in court yesterday.

Jakob Oetama told the Jakarta branch of the State
Administrative Court that the revocation of Tempo's publishing
license had not been among recommendations made to the government
by the council.

The council had only prepared recommendations that the media
engage in introspection in order to improve their reporting,
tighten the supervision of journalists and that the government
allow the media more room for "self-correction".

The last recommendation meant, among other things, asking the
media to tone down their reporting on sensitive issues, Jakob
said.

The Administrative Court was hearing two lawsuits against the
decision of Minister of Information Harmoko to revoke Tempo's
publishing license.

The lawsuits were filed by the magazine's former chief editor,
Goenawan Mohamad, and by former employees.

The publishing license of Tempo was revoked on June 21, 1994,
on "substantive" grounds. Two other newsweeklies, DeTik and
Editor, were banned, on the same day, for "administrative"
reasons.

Jakob, who is also chief editor of the Kompas daily, said the
council had met twice to discuss a "serious situation" which, he
said, had been caused by a number of news reports which had
appeared in the mass media at that time.

In the latter meeting, on June 21, which Jakob said was held
at the initiative of the council's secretary, Subrata, the
council discussed recommendations on the handling of the
situation. The meeting decided, among other things, to propose
that the government replace Tempo's chief editor if it considered
such a step to be necessary.

"The council never asserted that Tempo had strayed beyond the
notion of a 'free and responsible press'," Jakob said, citing a
section of the 1982 Press Law.

This recommendation was conveyed to Minister of Information
Harmoko. The minister is the council's chief ex-officio.

Jakob said the editors of the three weeklies had not been
given an opportunity to answer to or defend themselves against
accusations that their publications were not "free and
responsible".

Ambiguous

Jakob placed emphasis on the need to "understand the ambiguous
signals of those in the executive body".

"Developments at the time were serious and critical ... I
think everyone who read the papers carefully could see that there
was a strong possibility that there would be another press ban,"
he said, referring to press bans in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jakob, who has been a member of the council since the 1970's,
said he had experienced a similar atmosphere prior to previous
press bans. In the 1980's the government revoked the licenses of
several publications, including Sinar Harapan(1985),
Monitor(1988) and Prioritas(1987).

However, he said, he had not known when the axe would fall or
whether the government would, indeed, decide to revoke the
magazine's license.

"Until the last minute, when I was phoned by either Goenawan
Mohamad or Fikri Jufri -- I can't clearly recall -- I was still
sure that the government would not revoke the magazine's
license," Jakob said.

Fikri Jufri was Tempo's deputy editor at that time.

Jakob said that after the meeting of the Press Council on June
21, 1994 had ended, the information ministry held a press
conference to announce Ministerial Decree No. 123/1994 which
banned the three weeklies. Jacob said it had been days after the
ban was announced before he had been able to see a copy of the
decree.

Ashadi Siregar, a lecturer at University of Gadjah Mada's
communications department, was at yesterday's hearing as an
expert witness in the case.

Censor

He said that the ban was against the 1982 Press Law since it
violated the public's right to information.

"Censorship, except in communist and fascist states, is not
acceptable because it is understood that the content of news
reports always varies. When censorship occurs it implies that
future reports will have the same (unacceptable) content as the
previous ones. This cannot be the case because the content of a
report can never be predicted," he said.

Ashadi said the publishing license, or SIUPP, should regulate
media companies rather than media content.

"Whether the content is 'wrong' should be decided by a
competent institution, such as a legal body...The minister's
decision was made one-sidedly, without discussion with other
parties," he said.

Presiding Judge Benjamin Mangkoedilaga said he would consider
hearing evidence from the council's secretary, Subrata, who is
also the Information Ministry's Director General for Press and
Graphics.

Goenawan Mohamad and ex-Tempo employees were represented by
lawyers Frans Hendrawinata, Atmajaya Salim, Amir Syamsuddin, and
Trimoelja D. Soerjadi, while Harmoko was represented by a team of
four lawyers led by R. Wiyono.(pwn)