President Yudhoyono asks the media to not report inappropriate news stories.
In a speech marking National Press Day on 9th February President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked journalists and media outlets to exercise self-censorship, given that the time of government control over the press is over.
He told about 500 journalists and media people present: waspada
I really want to see “self censoring” put into practice. I have hope that the Press Board, senior journalists and reporters, and leaders of journalists’ associations will employ the principle of determining what is appropriate news and what is not.
Freedom of the press was much valued in Indonesia now, he said, and the country would not go back to the bad old days of active state interference in the media, but freedom had limits:
We are for freedom of the press but [in a way that is] useful, with good character, and responsible.
He mentioned detik the example of the Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten”, which published cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in September 2005, and which were also featured by Indonesian newspaper Rakyat Merdeka, on its website. The newspaper’s editor, Teguh Santosa, was later prosecuted.
We should learn a lesson from the case.
Other people’s rights, freedoms and sensibilities had to be respected, he said, especially when religion was involved:
Religion is very sensitive because it’s bound up with beliefs and emotions. Other people’s religious beliefs may appear irrational to us but we have to respect them.
The President also said the media should be careful in reporting violent incidents such as demonstrations, should use well-formed language, be idealistic, help in the development of the nation, be uplifting, truthful, and fair and balanced.
Odinius said
It wasn’t until after the cartoon crisis, for example, that the Danish government allowed Muslims to build any cemeteries.
Do they want their own cemeteries??? To make it easy for their Allah to separate the Submitters from the kafir at doomsday?
Multiculturalism à la Islam: even after death they think they are better and deserve special treatment. This may be a good idea for Danish a cartoonist to draw inspiration from.
Perhaps some of Yudhoyono statement is true since some of our newspapers such as Rakyat Merdeka practice yellow journalism. Just read its headline, and we will get what he meant. On the other side, however, his statement shows his discomfort dealing with media critics on his presidency.
Agree but if you read the article well these guys were using their right of freedom of speech to protest against freedom of speech! And guess what I just checked the news and you can wait for it. The demo’s are turning violent in the major Danish cities”¦
It seems to me that you have particular problem with Denmark”¦
What’s wrong with peacefully protesting an expression of free speech? Isn’t that, itself an expression of free speech? Can’t have one without the other, can we?
As for having a problem with Denmark, that’s about the dumbest straw man argument I’ve seen here, and makes me wonder if you are actually interested in discussion something or just want to score points?
You portrayed Denmark as problem-free in this regard. I thought that inaccurate. So I’m just pointing out that its problems integrating a minority do not derive only from that minority. Is that so hard to grasp? It’s a different manifestation of the same integration issue you have in America with Mexicans, in Britain with Pakistanis and in Indonesia with Chinese. And it’s a two-way street.
What’s wrong with peacefully protesting an expression of free speech? Isn’t that, itself an expression of free speech? Can’t have one without the other, can we?
Different people from different culture protest in dissimilar fashion. Muslims protests might be seen as threatening; we might say something stupid out of anger but we are peaceful.
@ Odinius
I thought Swedish and Danes are of the same stock. I used to drive down from Sweden into Denmark; and their vocab seemed similar. I do not believe Denmark is more xenophobia than others.
We are in most ways the same. I’m from the part of Sweden that borders Denmark, so our dialect, food and customs are even closer than that of most Swede…and aside from what Lairedion seems to think, I really like it there. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the right-wing politics that have developed there, or that those right-wing politics are free from some of the blame for the tense situation in Denmark.
As for xenophobia in Denmark, if you are in Copenhagen you would never notice it. But in the US, you’d barely notice racism in New York either. Leave the city and it’s there in spades. And it’s not just Islamophobic. Like in the rest of Europe, it can also manifest as prejudice against Eastern Europeans, Africans or, in Denmark’s case, Greenlanders.
Look at page 2 of the 1997 Eurobarometer survey: Of all European countries, the largest percentage of Danes described themselves as “very racist” 22,% or “quite racist” 33%. Compare with Sweden, 2%, 16%.
Add to that the fact that non-Danes face much more dramatic discrimination in housing and employment than in Sweden, and you have a significantly more xenophobic society. Does that mean all Danes are xenophobes? No. Does that mean even a majority of Danes are xenophobes? No. But it does mean there is more significant xenophobia in Denmark than in neighboring Sweden.
Different people from different culture protest in dissimilar fashion. Muslims protests might be seen as threatening; we might say something stupid out of anger but we are peaceful.
Yeah, but they are Danes as well, not just Muslims. Danish Muslims didn’t riot after the cartoons were published. Some of their leaders helped instigate riots in other places, but the protests in Denmark were peaceful. Therefore, Danish Muslim protest appears to be peaceful expressions of the right to protest.
Woops! Looks like I spoke too soon on Danish Muslim protests. Now youths are rioting.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL16445295
That does not fall under “appropriate expressions of free speech” in any which way IMO.
Seems to me you do have a particular problem with Denmark, namely right-wing politics. I never said Denmark in general. I don’t like right-wing politics either. Having a brown skin, black hair and black eyes genuine bule right-wingers won’t show much enthusiasm inviting me as their best mate.
I do have a problem with that, as I do anywhere. Here, in the USA, it’s “Mexicans,” in Indonesia, “Chinese,” in Denmark, “Muslims.” Sure there are some Mexican Americans who are in gangs; sure there are some Indonesian Chinese at the elite who are economic exploiters of the poor masses; sure there are some Muslims who are rioting in Denmark. But then you also have a lot of people who make it out like they’re all like that, and then don’t get it when more and more people within these groups feel alienated and like outsiders. One reaps what one sows in both directions: riot about some cartoons and don’t be surprised when people think your religion is violent…treat people like second class citizens and don’t be surprised when they get pissy about it.
Odinius, I’m not here to score points and I am interested in discussion. I feel you’re somewhat naive and too political correct. The links Aluang gave and the riots in Danish cities are perhaps a wake up call for you.
Hmm…I guess I wasn’t completely clear with what I was trying to say. I think you said it–rightly–in another thread: no religion has a monopoly on ***holes. All I’m pointing out is that Denmark has some very active ones on the nativist right, not just on the Muslim right. That’s neither naive nor politically correct: it’s informed. It’s also far more typical than not. In Britain, the 7/7 bombers were all from areas where both radical Islamist organizations and the BNP are active and popular, and where there were riots between BNP supporters and local Asians (including non-Muslims) in 2000 and 2001. So to me that’s no coincidence. Recognizing that doesn’t in any which way absolve the bombers or diminish their guilt. But reducing the explanation for their actions to “Islam” both obscures the fact that the vast majority of British Muslims are law-abiding and obfuscates the political and social circumstances that led to these individuals’ decision to explode themselves and murder a bunch of civilian commuters. Reductionism, thus, is never a “wake-up call;” it’s a bedtime story 🙂
Maybe I’ve made it clearer now, as you seem to have confused what I’m trying to say with an attempt to excuse what some Danish Muslims did in reaction to the cartoons, which I am not doing. If they are protesting peacefully, I’m okay with it. If they are violent, I am not. There is no excuse for causing violence in reaction to some stupid cartoons.
Since we’re on the cartoons, here’s an interesting editorial in the Jakarta Post
Some choice bits:
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper and other Danish publications on Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad which two years stirred ire among Muslims.
They did so as a “demonstration of free speech” a day after Danish security forces uncovered an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist.
Without reserve, condemnation and harsh punishment should be handed to the perpetrators of the plot. Nothing warrants attempted murder.
But the decision to reprint images that are clearly inflammatory in response to the plot does not represent an act of free speech, but malicious retribution born out of anger.
Knowing full well the insult those images — one of Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse — represent to many Muslims, Danish editors acted not in defense of a deficiency of freedom, but an excess of the wrong kind of free speech.
Self-crucifixion, at somebody else’s expense, as they bask in the warmth of the hostile blaze these cartoons have created.
In the strictest sense, the Danish papers were acting within their right of free speech. But press freedom does not liberate common sense against being insensitive or derogatory.
The editor of The Jakarta Post, in a 2006 article during the original outcry over the cartoons, defended Jyllands-Posten’s right of free speech, but lamented its editor’s bad judgment.
Apparently it was not bad judgment, they were just ignoble. The apologies expressed by the newspaper two years ago were insincere given the reckless decision to republish the cartoon.
Words (in this case a caricature) are powerful weapons. The greatest products of humanity are born of them. But words can also inspire hatred and violence.
That is why even in great democracies like the United States, free speech does not protect statements which incite hatred, illegal actions or provoke violence.
But some insults are just not worth responding to, especially when it projects the ignorance of its xenophobic authors. Like hearing a drunk bigot shouting on the curbside, there is no use being provoked by someone so deafening in their stupidity.
@ Odinius
Re Peaceful protest by Danish Muslims.
It would be out of character for Muslims to protest peacefully. Even the one and only peaceful and unorthodox group, the Javanese Muslims, can sometime turn violent if provoked.
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“Just wondering would you be referring to Christianity and Islam there?”
See, that is the problem. We all must select our tribe, right?
WHY DO I HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE? I dont want either of them, and I don’t want to be hindu or buddhist or anything else. Why can’t I have the freedom to not believe or be part in any of this?