Activists Slam Ministry Move to Restrict Foreign Journalists' Access
Jakarta. Human rights watchdog Imparsial on Thursday called on the Home Affairs Ministry to renounce a regulation aimed at increasing government control on foreign journalists in Indonesia, arguing the move violated the principle of transparency.
Imparsial's executive director Poengky Indarti said the regulation also contradicted President Joko Widodo's stance on foreign journalists in the country.
"Imparsial urges the Home Affairs Ministry to revoke the circular as it goes against President Joko Widodo's position of welcoming foreign journalists covering Papua and other regions in the country," Poengky said on Thursday.
The circular demands that foreign journalists and their local crew have permits issued by the Foreign Affairs and the Home Affairs Ministries. Foreign journalists must also report their activities and acquire permits from all relevant levels of government, from the municipal or district level to the provincial level.
Poengky pointed to restrictions that appear similar to the New Order regime's attempts to keep an eye foreign journalists.
"The letter clearly implies disobedience of a president who is open to foreign coverage, as well as suspicion of the press and civilians," she added. "It will also lead to less investment and tourism income."
Speaking at an event in Merauke, Papua, in May, Joko said that he had allowed foreign journalists to enter Papua and conduct reporting activities like elsewhere in the country. He said he wanted to diminish the misinformation about Papua by granting full access to the province.
Last October, the Jayapura District Court sentenced two French journalists, Thomas Charles Dandois and Marie Valentine Bourrat, to 2.5 months in prison for violating their visa terms as they were using tourist visas for a journalism trip to Papua.
Separately, Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo countered the criticism that the new regulation restricts foreign press access. "Foreign press is free to cover Indonesia but they must follow procedures," he said on Thursday.
Tjahjo said that foreign journalists, like their local counterparts, were free to go anywhere in Indonesia for their work.
"The Home Affairs Ministry also asks that our officials be open to both local and foreign press," he said.
The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club on Thursday also expressed its concerns about the regulation, saying in a statement that the "continuation and expansion of restrictive state policies on visiting journalists is a sad reminder of the authoritarian Suharto regime, and a stain on Indonesia’s transition to democracy and claims by its government that it supports a free press and human rights."
The JFCC statement added that it found the new requirements "particularly troubling given that the Indonesian government already takes weeks if not months to issue approvals for foreign journalists and film crews to visit Indonesia to work -- if at all."
Raising the issue of "whether the Ministry of Home Affairs understands or heeds orders from the Presidential Palace," the organization also called on the US government to make the freedom of the press "a primary topic of conversation" during the planned state visit of Joko to the US, at the invitation of President Barack Obama.
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