Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A Bill that involves placing a government "spy" in broadcasting agencies here is likely to be passed next month by parliament to regulate the electronic media.
The Bill has been deliberated in the House for the past two years to regulate the rapidly growing broadcasting industry but is being opposed widely by operators of television and radio stations.
They say the Bill will curtail press freedom and retard the industry's growth. Under the Bill the government will issue a "frequency licence" to broadcast to radio and television stations.
An independent regulatory body, the Indonesian Broadcast Commission, will recommend the stations to the government as well as set a code of conduct for electronic media and impose sanctions.
Coordinator of the Indonesian Society of Press and Broadcasting (MPPI) Leo Batubara told The Straits Times: "The Bill gives back the legal authority to the government, instead of the independent body, to decide on which broadcasting company will get licences. It also allows the government to interfere in the daily running of the broadcasting business. This is certainly not what we had in mind when we proposed the draft Bill to parliament – this is a return to the old paradigm that the government controls the press."
The MPPI proposed the first draft of the Bill to parliament three years ago to replace the 1997 broadcasting law, which it claimed to be repressive. The draft Bill was debated in parliament and over time its content has been altered drastically as the lawmakers thought too much freedom had encouraged irresponsible and provocative press.
The MPPI said that at least a third of the 63 articles in the Bill carried the threat of imprisonment or fines if radio or television operators were found to have broken the law.
One of the contentious articles requires all TV films and advertisements to undergo censorship by the government. Currently, only TV films are censored by the government, but TV operators had called for an end to all sorts of government censorship, arguing it should be done by the respective TV stations instead.
The Bill also says that a "government official inspector" would be placed in each broadcasting company. "This is like having a government spy in our station," said an executive in a private TV station.
Established private television with nationwide reach such as the RCTI and SCTV, will also be forced to undergo major restructuring as the Bill requires all national TV stations to become local stations.
This means the country's 10 private national TV stations have to set up a separate company with local partners and broadcast localised content in each of the regions. Parliament has argued that such a move would prevent the "monopoly of information".
The Bill also limits media cross-ownership and requires electronic media to renew frequency distribution licences after 10 years of operations.
Several media group such as Kompas Gramedia and Media Indonesia operate both print and broadcasting media organisations.
"What we fear is that under this system, the government can deny or lift the frequency licence of some company under the pretext that it broke some law, if its coverage is too critical," said Mr Leo.
Several publications were banned for their critical coverage during the 32 years of President Suharto. His fall in 1998 opened the door to the current press freedom.