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"The 1999 Press Law owes its difference to three features: protection, deregulation, and generation. It guarantees press freedom and gives it protection."

The New Indonesian Press Law
By: Warief Djajanto
February 10, 2000

If there is one institution that is hounded constantly over time by numerous quarters, that institution is probably the Indonesian press. A Jakarta journalist stated those words in a panel at the Dr. Soetomo Press Institute here on April 24, 1998. He expressed the thoughts of many Indonesian news people and spoke from experience. His own newspaper has had frequent rebukes from the Information Ministry and berating from influential people for critical stories and editorials that did not settle well with them.
This was the time when criticizing the then-Soeharto government was like treading gingerly over a minefield. One casualty for testing the limits was the news weekly magazine Tempo that lost its license in June 1994. A high profile, one and a half-year court battle ensued which the magazine lost to get its permit back. The Jakarta journalist who spoke at the April 1998 panel is Susanto Pudjomartono, the esteemed editor of the Jakarta Post. On May 21, less than a month later, Indonesia's seemingly perennial president for 32 years stepped down after students stormed the Parliament building and half his Cabinet resigned.
That event signaled a tremendous turnaround for the state of the Indonesian press that no one could have previously imagined. In the changeover from Soeharto to B. J. Habibie, the press underwent perhaps the most thorough transformation among Indonesia's institutions. In days, it turned from the hounded press to press hound. It was a switch from night to day, from not having it to having it. That "it" is press freedom.
During the brief 17-month Habibie presidency, media leaders worked fast and furiously with a forward-looking information minister and concerned legislators to make press freedom legally binding. On September 13, 1999, the House of Representatives passed a 21-article press bill. On September 23, B.J. Habibie, in one of his last judicious acts as president, signed the bill making it Law no. 40/1999 of the Republic of Indonesia on the Press, or simply the 1999 Press Law. It is Indonesia's third press law, annulling the 1966 and 1982 press laws made under Soeharto.
However, the difference between the two previous laws and the current one is the difference between an obstacle course and a tollway.
The 1999 Press Law owes its difference to three features: protection, deregulation, and generation. One, it guarantees press freedom and gives it protection. Two, it puts the legal imprint on the ongoing process of deregulation that started when Habibie replaced Soeharto. Three, that deregulation has generated a multitude of print media start-ups. Why press freedom? Because it is a manifestation of the people's sovereignty, the law says.
Protection Article 4 of the new law states press freedom is guaranteed as a basic right for citizens. This means, the law explains, that "the press is free from any form of prevention, prohibition and or pressure so that the public right for information is guaranteed." It further says that the press is free from censorship and is not subject to publication and broadcasting bans.
During the New Order years of President Soeharto, Jakarta editors were often invited to briefings at the Information Ministry on what they can and can not print.
Now this practice is history. Moreover as the Information ministry is no more. After Abdurrachman Wahid became Indonesia's first democratically elected president in a vote in the Consultative Assembly last October 20, he abolished the ministry. He argued that information is society's business, not the government's.
Article 4 continues to say that to guarantee press freedom, the national press has the right to seek out, obtain and disseminate ideas and information.
To protect journalists in their legitimate exercise of press freedom, Article 18 has a set of criminal regulations. It states that anyone who intentionally impedes the national press in exercising that press freedom as provided in article 4 can face up to two years imprisonment or fined up to 500 million rupiah, about US$80,000.
Furthermore, to protect press freedom, Article 15 stipulates the setting up of an independent Press Council. Its job is to prevent outside interests interfering with press freedom, settle public complaints arising from news stories, and help in increasing the quality of the profession. The members of the council, yet to be formed, will be prominent media leaders and specialists but no government officials.
Despite these legal layers of protection, a nagging question remains: is the new press law an ironclad safeguard for press freedom? The short answer is no. Indonesia still has laws that a judge can use to override the new press law if a lawsuit affecting press freedom comes to court. Indonesia's penal code has several anachronistic articles from the Dutch colonial period that could put a journalist in jail for legitimate press work. Article 134 of the penal code, locally called KUHP, says that the purposeful defaming of the President and Vice President can lead to a maximum prison sentence of six years or a top fine of 4,500 rupiah, or 60 U.S. cents under current exchange rates. Defamation, or penghinaan in Indonesian, is defined in the penal code as written or oral communication in public with four or more people attending that the affected party may find offensive.
There are also articles 154 and 155, the so-called hate-sowing articles. These articles relate to the spreading of ill will toward the government in public. For that, the defendant can get a maximum jail term of four years and six months or a fine of 4,500 rupiah. Another plausible threat to press freedom is the controversial state security bill the old House of Representatives passed September 23, 1999. The bill, the RUU Penanggulangan Keadaan Bahaya in Indonesian, could give unchecked power to the government and military if the president, or a governor at provincial level, were to declare a state of emergency, critics claim. Again, students and youths took to the streets. The Habibie government bowed to public pressure and announced the next day the bill's signing into law would be postponed. But not after four people died in violent clashes with troopers. This bill is in legal limbo now. Apparently the present administration of President Abdurrachman "Gus Dur" Wahid has put it in the back burner.
Deregulation In the Soeharto years, a person required a press license to print a paper. Called a surat izin usaha penerbitan pers or SIUPP, the license entailed a long-winding and costly process. The license was the device to keep the press in compliance with government directives. Any deviation from the directive could mean withdrawal of the license as in the case of the weekly publications Tempo, Editor and Detik in 1994. The license scheme also kept the numbers in check. Now, under the new law, no such permits are required. Any Indonesian can simply start a paper by setting up a legal body. The investor is only obliged to announce the name, address, the person in charge, and the name and address of the printing house. Foreign investors can become minority shareholders with a local print media company. For journalists, the new law abandons the old rule that journalists must belong to a government-sanctioned journalists' organization. Now journalists can join the organization of their choice.
Generation The deregulation of the press has generated numerous new tabloids, newspapers, and magazines. Start-ups do not have to register with the Information ministry. Sidewalk vendors near bus terminals and malls hawk such a variety of newspapers. However, many of these new titles appear and vanish because a steady number of readers cannot absorb increasing numbers of choices. Press freedom and deregulation is one thing. Content quality is another. To some "new generation" journalists, press freedom is perceived as license to print lurid stories and outrageous headlines, if not letting fiction pass as fact. To deal with this problem, a number of media watch organizations around the country have sprung. They are run by media study centers and publish newsletters to critique general media content. The newsletters are circulated to news organizations for the benefit of working journalists. These newsletters include Sendi in Surabaya, Buletin Media Watch in Makasar, Kupas in Medan, and Independenwatch! in Jakarta.
Looking Ahead The 1999 Press Law allows big capital investors to bring out new titles or link with established, small but promising media with the minimum of regulatory hassle. In the long term, the trend is for the fit, better-endowed media businesses to thrive and expand, with an eye for local newspapers in the provinces at district level. Major news conglomerates like the Jakarta-based Kompas group and the Surabaya-based Jawa Pos combine have made acquisitions or started new titles beyond their home base.
Competition will call for professional journalists to produce quality content. That quality will be monitored by the Press Council and the media watch groups the new press law has encouraged to develop. Despite this, media practitioners would have to work to remove all repressive laws inside and outside the penal code that can imperil press freedom.

Warief Djajanto has been a journalist with the KNI News Service and Jakarta correspondent for the Manila-based DEPTHnews (1971-91), and a journalism instructor at the Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (1991-99). In December 1999 he joined the Antara news agency as training editor.Thispiece was presented as a paper at the PCIJ-SEAPA Access to Information forum in Jakarta on February 10, 2000.
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