'Sinar Harapan' hits stands after 15 years

'Sinar Harapan' hits stands after 15 years

JAKARTA (JP): Afternoon paper Sinar Harapan (Light of Hope)
made its comeback to city newsstands on Monday after being shut
down for about 15 years since October 1986.

Chief editor Aristides Katoppo stated the publishing company,
PT Sinar Harapan Persada, distributed 100,000 copies of the
newspaper to newsstands in the city, and they sold well.

Aristides said that for the time being, copies of the
newspaper would be made available only in Greater Jakarta.

He contended that the high delivery costs had prevented the
company from distributing copies of the newspaper to areas
outside Greater Jakarta.

"Hopefully within one year we can break even," he told The
Jakarta Post by phone on Monday afternoon.

At least 60 journalists and staffers, along with a number of
contributors, work on the daily's general news plus the Sunday
weekender edition.

The Soeharto administration shut down the paper in October
1986 after 25 years of operation due to its sharp criticism of
the government.

Sinar Harapan was then replaced by government-sanctioned Suara
Pembaruan afternoon paper, still using the former paper's office
and staff.

However, Aristides claimed, Suara's management refused to
revive Sinar, letting the latter go its own way.

"The decision to publish Sinar is based on numerous requests
by people for a comeback of the paper in this era of freedom of
the press. Sinar aims to recover its name, ideas and vision.

"Sinar's vision is to uphold freedom, truth, justice and peace
based on love. The vision is still relevant today when all we
need is peace. This paper will take part in the struggle to
achieve reconciliation in the country," Aristides, who is one of
the paper's founding fathers, remarked.(bby)