INDONESIA-HUMAN RIGHTS: Jailed Journalist To Receive Award

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 2 1995 (IPS) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based media watchdog, hopes Indonesian journalist Ahmad Taufik can be in town here Dec 6 to receive the group’s International Press Freedom Award.

But for now, that hope seems dim. Taufik was sentenced on Sep 1 to 32 months in jail after being charged with publishing an unlicensed newspaper and violating a law forbidding the expression of “freedom of hostility, hatred or contempt toward the government.”

Taufik is expecting to hear later this month the Indonesian courts’ response to an appeal he has filed against the September ruling. The CPJ hopes that, by that time, enough international attention can be focused on his case to prod the courts to reverse its conviction.

“Our hope is that the award will bring international attention to this particular case, and what it indicates about the state of press freedom in Indonesia,” Vikram Parekh, the CPJ Asia coordinator, says.

Parekh notes that, since June 1994, when three leading Indonesian weeklies — including Tempo, for which Taufik worked — were banned by the government, reporting on a number of issues has been restricted.

“I think it’s an attempt to crack down on reports of autocracy and cronyism” in the Indonesian government, he says.

The three banned weeklies — Tempo, Datuk and Editor — all tested the waters by printing articles on subjects formerly considered off-limits, Parekh says. Among the subjects being covered more thoroughly than before were arms deals made by top Indonesian officials and the ongoing Indonesian Army occupation of East Timor, which Jakarta annexed in 1976.

“One of the reasons (for the banning) was that their reporting on East Timor was a little too blunt for the government,” says John Miller, New York coordinator of the East Timor Action Network.

In response to the bannings, Taufik last year helped form the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), an alternative to the government-sponsored Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI). He also continued to take on sensitive topics in an AJI-published newsletter, Independen.

Among Independen’s more controversial articles was one suggesting that Indonesian Information Minister Harmoko “has managed to acquire shares in quite a lot of publications in Indonesia,” Parekh says.

The government struck back, arresting Taufik and AJI colleague Eko Maryadi along with an office assistant, Danang Kukuh Wardoyo on Mar 16. It said Independen did not have a valid license. Taufik and Maryadi have both received 32-month jail sentences, while Wardoyo was sentenced to 20 months.

Since then, CPJ executive director William Orme noted in a letter last week to U.S. President Bill Clinton, Indonesian authorities have pressed news organisations to dismiss reporters who belong to AJI. The arrests and threats, he wrote, have “contributed to a climate of fear for many Indonesian journalists.”

Some U.S. lawmakers agreed. A letter to Clinton sent by 28 members of the House of Representatives before his meeting with Indonesian President Suharto last Friday cited the jail sentences against Taufik and Maryadi.

“Freedom of expression is under attack by the Indonesian government,” the lawmakers wrote. “Over the past year, seminars held by Indonesian non-governmental organisations have been broken up by the police, (and) gag orders issued against controversial speakers.”

Clinton did discuss human rights issues with Suharto in their Friday meeting, a State Department official said. But he was unable to confirm whether the Taufik case specifically came up.

Parekh says he has heard that the U.S. State Department sent an observer to Taufik’s trial. But Washington has generally downplayed human rights concerns with Indonesia, one of Washington “big emerging markets” (BEMs). Many sources say the talks last week centred on economic agreements, including the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Japan.

Taufik, however, seems not to have been discouraged by his jail sentence.

“Journalists should tell the truth and only the truth,” he said during his trial. “I’m prepared to be jailed just for the truth.”