'Tempo' closure is baseless: Witnesses
'Tempo' closure is baseless: Witnesses
JAKARTA (JP): The government's decision to revoke the publishing license of Tempo weekly was groundless, two former editors of the current affairs magazine said yesterday.
Putu Setia and Bambang Bujono were testifying during a hearing at the Jakarta State Administrative Court on Tempo's lawsuit against Minister of Information Harmoko's decision to revoke the magazine's license last June.
"I did not see and was not aware of any statement explicitly describing the reasons for the revocation of our magazine," Putu said responding to a question from Judge Benjamin Mangkoedilaga.
"The ministerial decree did not specifically state which stories were deemed offensive," Bambang said.
Tempo lost its publishing license, which virtually meant its closure, in June last year. The Ministry of Information said the magazine's proprietor repeatedly ignored warnings from the government about its editorial content.
Now Harmoko is facing four separate lawsuits from former Tempo editors, employees and even readers. Two suits were filed at the administrative court and two others at a district court. All contested the legality of the minister's decision to revoke the licenses.
Tempo's former employees have parted ways. A group of them have gone on to publish a new magazine called Gatra with financing from timber tycoon Mohammad (Bob) Hasan.
Bambang said that as managing editor, he never received any written warnings, nor was he informed of any warnings from the government before the day of the revocation.
And as a member of the editorial board, he said he was not aware of any meeting by the Press Council regarding the revocation of the publishing license.
Putu said the revocation came as a shock to the magazine's editors. "The minister should have issued a first warning and then followed that with a stern warning before closing the magazine," he said.
As a matter of policy, Tempo had always followed the regulations and directions set out by the government regarding news stories. "We discontinued publishing articles which were deemed sensitive," he said.
As an example, he cited the time when Tempo ran a story about a Hindu sect in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. He said Tempo never received any copy of the record the government reportedly writes up for every press publication.
This report, along with various other documents, have been presented by Harmoko's lawyers in his defense.
Putu also underlined that in the absence of any clear censorship guidelines, editors could not know for sure which stories could be published and which ones could not. (imn)