Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Buckling under increased international pressure, the Indonesian government said yesterday there was no grand design for a Suharto-like clampdown on the foreign media.

But it continued to evade questions about its recent decision to ban an Australian journalist from working in Indonesia.

Fears that Jakarta was reverting to banning critical journalists and censoring the press emerged earlier this month when the government refused to extend the working visa of an award-winning Australian journalist. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was concerned that Indonesia – whose press is among the most liberal in Asia – was showing signs of restricting the media. President Megawati Sukarnoputri was "showing worrying signs of being less friendly towards the press", it said.

The ban on Australian Lindsay Murdoch came in the wake of other worrying moves by the Megawati government – such as the revival of an information ministry, criticism of the press by Mrs Megawati for negative reporting and restrictions on reporters covering the presidential palace.

Mr Gunawan Mohamad, a writer and senior editor of Tempo magazine, said Mr Murdoch's case was a "dangerous setback" to press freedom. He said he feared a return to Suharto-era censorship which kept the media under strict control and even banned magazines such as Tempo if their reporting was too critical of the government.

However, the Foreign Ministry yesterday denied that Mr Murdoch's ban was the start of press censorship. "As a government we revel in, we expect and we wish only the greatest freedom of the press ... there is no question whatsoever of us ever going back to the past," said ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa.

Also of concern was news that an inter-departmental committee, which decides on visa extensions, has the power to reject other journalists applying for visa extensions. Senior local journalists suspect that military members of the committee were behind the decision to ban Mr Murdoch. While admitting that the committee might include members of the military, Mr Marty said it was "not some kind of censorship committee".

The Committee to Protect Journalists also pointed out that Indonesian journalists had suffered an increasing number of attacks or threats while covering regional conflicts and economic and political upheavals.

The largest paper in Aceh province, Serambi, was forced to suspend publication for two weeks last August after independence rebels threatened the paper for allegedly biased reporting. In another incident, a Serambi reporter was assaulted by army officers and threatened with death.

Ban on journalist: Ministry blames 'technical matter'

• Jakarta refused to extend the work visa of award-winning Australian journalist Lindsay Murdoch (right) earlier this month.
• The ban on Mr Murdoch was due to a "technical matter" and not his critical reporting on East Timor and Aceh, Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.
• But despite calls from leading Indonesian media figures, Mr Marty declined to explain why the "technical matter" could not be resolved.
• Mr Murdoch said his employers, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, had written repeatedly saying they would be happy to resolve any misunderstandings in order for his visa to be extended until the end of the year, but they had received no reply.