TV broadcasting of the Court Trial of former Corruption Eradication Commission(KPK) Antasari Azhar has annoyed the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI).
Due to this reasonKPI is now planning to ban direct bbroadcasting of public hearings in the court of law and parliament starting December 2009.
According to a member of KPI Bimo Nugroho such ban is neccessary based on KPI's Broadcasting Behaviour Guidance and Broadcasting Program Standard. As an example, he mentioned about the Court Trial of Antasahari that revealed sexual relationship between Antasari and Rani.
This plan was strongly protested by the media, the Press Council, member of the House of Representative and lawyers who said that such ban violates the Constitution Article 28 F which guarantee citizen's right to get information, as well as the Press Law No.40/1999 Article 4(2) that protects the media against broadcasting sensorship and prohibition.
In reaction to the growing protests, KPI's Chief Professor Sasa Djuarsa said that the plan is still not yet finalized.
For detailed reports, please click here, here, here, here and here.
I hope that the above mentioned KPI's plan does not indicate that Indonesia will be going back to the old days of controlled/censored media.
8 comments:
The good news here is that all kinds of authorities, civil servants and institutions seem to be very sensitive to protests by pubic at large, by public opinion.
colson is right that is good news and that people are no longer scared about complaining is good too. Remember also that other countries such as Britain where they are supposed to have an open and mature democracy hold secret hearings frequently on sensitive issues. The British inquiry into the Expenses Scandal in Parliament is being conducted outside the full public gaze it warrants.
Colson,
As long as the authorities, civil servants and institutions only do their jobs based on the interests of the people and the country.
Duckham,
For national security, intelligence and other sensitive issues such ban can be acceptable.
It will be not good if media broadcasting in Indonesia back to the old days.. Civil like me will not know anything about what is happening in the government (lke the old days, all media praise the government up high while he shot innocent people to die). It's true that KPI is an independent council.. but being independent doesn't meant they can ban this and that and hide the truth from public, isn't it?
Ame,
Basically I agree with you that news should be allowed to flow freely.
However, there are certain matters that should not be exposed freely for example : trial of under aged children, pornography, national security, and other matters which are very sensitive that if their hearing in a court or parliament are exposed to the public would endanger peace and order.
Aaagh.... if this regulation takes effect, we are regressing into the New Order era, this is not a good precedent for the ongoing reforms I'm afraid.
Do you think that this regulation is born with the plausibility of KPI tipping the scales in favour of either side??
Yari,
I share your concern about possibility of returning to the New Order era. However, I would like to see it from a positive way i.e. KPI only wants to ban Court and Parliament hearings of sensitive matters related to Children, Morality, Divorce, which according to the law should carried out behind close doors, also sensitive matters related to national security. Even countries like U.K and USA have such limitations.
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