Farouk Arnaz & Camelia Pasandaran – A hard-line Islamic group notorious for its violent raids and vigilantism has filed a complaint with the Press Council against a slew of national media outlets for what it alleges is biased coverage of its actions.
Munarman, a spokesman for the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday that his organization had cited broadcasters MetroTV, tvOne, TransTV, Trans7, RCTI, ANTV, SCTV and Sindo TV, as well as the newspapers Kompas, Media Indonesia and Warta Kota in its report to the Press Council.
Munarman, a former chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), accused the news outlets of repeatedly lying in their coverage of incidents connected to the FPI, and of failing to provide balanced reporting. The lies, he said, were propagated in an attempt to demonize the FPI.
"The mass media that we reported mixed facts and opinions," he said. "We want to test whether the principle that is held so high by the democratic people concerning press independence, which doesn't take sides, can be applied fairly to Islamic people."
Munarman said the media should be fair toward Muslims. "This is the time to test them on their own principles and standards," he said. The FPI has submitted video recordings of the TV news reports and newspaper clippings to the Press Council to study.
"For example, in Lamongan, the media said the FPI clashed [with local residents], when in fact there is no FPI chapter in Lamongan," he said, referring to a district in East Java.
"And then in the Tasikmalaya case, it was said that an FPI member was involved in the police shooting in Pondok Aren [in Bekasi] and involved in terrorism, while this was actually not true."
In the Lamongan case earlier this month, police arrested 42 people from a mob that attacked a village. Despite the FPI's protests about not having a branch in the district, the East Java Police have insisted that those arrested were FPI members.
Sr. Comr. Suhartoyo, a spokesman for the provincial police, said that investigators "could not have said they were FPI members without the evidence."
"They're indeed FPI members. During the investigation, they admitted that they're FPI members and they have membership cards," he said as quoted by Merdeka.com.
The second case centers on the murder of two police officers in Pondok Aren last week and the subsequent arrest of a 44-year-old man in the West Java town of Tasikmalaya. The suspect, Iwan Priadi, is reportedly an active member of the local FPI, according to a statement by his wife to Tempo.co.
Ade Armando, a mass media expert from the University of Indonesia, told the Globe that media outlets often had to rely on police statements as a valid information.
"It's ideal to cover both sides, but sometimes the media can't do that because of time constraints or because one side can't be contacted," he said.
"If the media gets information from an authorized institution like the police, based on a strong facts, such as in a corruption case, then covering both sides isn't a must. The FPI shouldn't kill the messenger just because the sources say something negative about them."
He said the FPI would only tarnish its reputation further by trying to silence the media. "Concerning their accusation that the media mix facts and opinions, we have to be fair that the media might be wrong. But quoting someone's statement doesn't mean the media are mixing facts and opinions," Ade said.
However, he said at least the FPI had taken the proper channel by bringing the matter before the Press Council instead of the police. "It means that they study the methods acknowledged by democracy," he said.