September 29, 2011

The Legal Aid Foundation for the Press said on Thursday that it would appeal the six-month prison sentence handed down to a Batam-based radio broadcaster critical of the human rights record of the Chinese authorities.

Hendrayana, the chairman of the foundation known as LBH Pers, told the Jakarta Globe that the conviction of Gatot Supriyanto Machali, director of Erabaru FM in Batam, Riau Islands, on charges of operating without a license was premature because the broadcaster was still appealing the government’s 2008 decision to deny it a broadcasting permit.

“The decision [on the permit] is not yet final, so the authorities should not have prosecuted Gatot, and instead should have respected the legal process that is taking place,” Hendrayana said.

In March last year, the authorities raided the radio station and confiscated equipment on the grounds that it was flouting the broadcasting ban. The station began transmitting in 2005 under a locally issued provisional license, but the Communications and Information Technology Ministry refused to grant it a full broadcasting license in 2008.

The station management alleges that the rejection was the result of pressure from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta over its broadcasts critical of the Chinese government’s repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

In a letter dated April 8, 2007, and addressed to the Foreign Ministry, the embassy purportedly asked the Indonesian government “to terminate the license of [Radio Erabaru].”

Copies were allegedly sent to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), the Home Affairs Ministry, the Communications and Information Technology Ministry and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI).

Gatot has said he practiced Falun Gong meditation exercises, but denied allegations that linked his radio station with the spiritual movement, which is banned in China.

Hendrayana said the refusal to grant Erabaru a broadcasting permit was inexcusable since the station management had complied with a 2007 KPI regulation limiting foreign-language content to 30 percent of total programming. The government had previously cited the station’s Mandarin broadcasts as one of the reasons for the refusal.

“The government should be at the forefront of upholding our broadcasting sovereignty and press freedom in the country,” Hendrayana said.

Instead, he added, it had caved in to the alleged intervention.

But Gatot Dewa Broto, a spokesman for the Communications and Information Technology Ministry, denied any foreign influence in the raid and prosecution. Gatot said the crackdown was because Erabaru had insisted on remaining on the air illegally.

According to the ministry, Erabaru applied for a permit filed along with six other radio stations in 2005. After an evaluation, the review board issued permits to five stations in October 2007, and denied two others, including Erabaru.

In 2008, the Erabaru management challenged the decision at the Central Jakarta District Court, but lost the case because it should have gone through the State Administrative Court.

The following year, it took its case to the administrative court and lost again. An appeal at the high court went the same way, and in 2010 the station’s management filed for a review with the Supreme Court. The review has not yet been heard.

Gatot of the Communications Ministry said it was wrong to accuse the government of being “discriminative” in the case.

“We are only enforcing the law,” he said.

Earlier this month, Gatot of Erabaru was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation for “broadcasting without permission” and “disrupting other frequencies.” However, he insisted that the “root cause of the attack on Erabaru is the intervention of the Chinese regime.”

“The government was pressured by the Chinese Embassy to criminalize me and shut the station down. In this case the authorities passed the buck to the courts,” he told the Globe earlier this month.