State coming back with vengeance, the media warned

State coming back with vengeance, the media warned

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta

Anyone who thinks that the press in Indonesia is enjoying
unlimited freedom, without state control, could not be more
mistaken. Fourteen defamation suits against the press over the
past year attest to the return of a new, more subtle form of
state censorship, noted lawyer Nono Anwar Makarim says.

"The state is coming back with a vengeance, and it is
punishing left, right and center" Makarim told a discussion on
defamation and its impact on press freedom.

Instead of licensing -- the way in which the press was
controlled for three decades, until the demise of the Soeharto
regime in 1998 -- the state employs a more "surreptitious"
method: The use of the rule of law, and more specifically, the
use of the Criminal Code to get at "offending" publications.

President BJ Habibie abolished the press licensing system only
weeks after he took over from Soeharto in May 1998. The following
year, the House of Representatives enacted a new press law that
guarantees rather than controls press publications.

Press freedom was short lived, however. Successive defamation
lawsuits have had a chilling effect on the entire industry,
according to observers.

"We're very, very free indeed," Makarim said, when asked to
compare Indonesia with other countries in the region. "But this
freedom can be taken away, slowly, and surreptitiously."

The two-day Law Colloquium 2004 -- From Insult to Slander at
Dharmawangsa Hotel is jointly organized by the Aksara Foundation,
which Makarim chairs, and the Indonesian Press Council.

Press publications facing defamation suits failed to convince
the court to resort to the 1999 Press Law. Instead, defamation
articles in the Criminal Code, with harsher penalties, have been
used, with a devastating effect on the press.

Three journalists of Tempo magazine are currently on trial for
defamation against businessman Tomy Winata. They each face prison
terms of between two and three years. Tempo lost a civil lawsuit
related to the defamation case, and had been ordered to pay US$1
million. The magazine is appealing the verdict.

Rakyat Merdeka, a newspaper known for its sensational
headlines, lost defamation cases against President Megawati
Soekarnoputri and House Speaker Akbar Tandjung. Its two editors
are appealing their six-to-eight-month prison terms.

Makarim said the press faced "legal hazards" in the Criminal
Code that include articles on insulting the government, on sowing
hate, and on inciting civil disobedience.

The court, in defamation cases, did not consider truth
relevant, while the clause on public interest, often used as a
defense by the press, had been too strictly interpreted, he said.

He noted that the defamation articles were enacted during the
Dutch colonial period to restrict freedom of speech.

"It should be an embarrassment for leaders in Indonesia that
successive governments since the revolution, either by negligence
or design, have maintained these colonial laws by the book.

"The 1999 Press Law does not give privileges to journalists
that put them above the criminal law," he said.

"The press, on occasion, has let its hair down," he said.

"At such moments, it tends to confuse style with smear,
punditry with chance, and public attention with a thirst for
sensation.

"In the process, it hurts people," he said.