Kompas -
June 17, 2010
Jakarta –
The law that serves as a basis for the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to ban
the circulation of books is no longer contextual or relevant under the current
situation.
"The
law was made because [Indonesia's first President] Sukarno needed to control
things that conflicted with the spirit of the revolution from within and
outside the country," said National Human Rights Commission Chairperson
Ifdhal Kasim during a seminar titled Monitoring Media Regulations and
Regulators: Caring for Press Freedom and Democracy held by PR2Media on
Tuesday June 15.
The law he
was referred to is Law Number 4/PNPS/1963 on the Securing of Printed Materials
Whose Contents could Disturb Public Order. None of the conditions that served
as a basis for this law exist any more. Problems related to books, such as
defamation or blasphemy can be dealt with under criminal law.
Author
Taufik Rahzen highlighted the fact that since the time of Dharmawangsa, the
last king of Medang, there has been attempts to control the written word in
order to maintain and legitimise power. The current banning of books is still
within this context. "These book bannings are counterproductive in terms
of improving the foundations of the nation-state", he said.
Historian
Asvi Warman Adam said that there were no book bannings in 1998-2005. Between
2006 and 2009 however, book bannings have resurfaced. These bannings, according
to Adam, are mistaken in several ways. He gave the example of the banning of
history books that were prohibited in 2007 because they failed to mention the 1948
Madiun affair or only mentioned 1965 30 September Movement without mentioning
the Indonesian Communist Party. "Three volumes were banned, yet the first
and second volumes were about the archipelago's kingdoms and colonialism, only
the fourth book was about Indonesian independence", he said.
Another
speaker, Godang Riadi Siregar, who is an intelligence researcher with the AGO,
said that the AGO works in accordance with the authority given to it by Law
Number 4/PNPS/1963. (EDN)
[Translated
by James Balowski.]
