The Long Road to Safe Journalism in Indonesia

A reportage of a cross-sector meeting for the security and safety of Indonesian journalists in 3 regions: west, center, and east.

Journalists in Indonesia continue to yearn for a sense of security in carrying out their duties. A report by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) said that throughout 2021, there were 43 cases of violence against journalists. This figure does not include various cases that were not included in the report. The Tifa Foundation, which is part of the Safe Journalism consortium together with the Nusantara Media Development Association (PPMN) and the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), seeks to carry out a series of public campaign activities, capacity building and advocacy aimed at improving the security and safety of journalists. One of Tifa Foundation's efforts is to organize cross-sectoral meetings on handling violence against journalists in three regions in Indonesia. The three regions or regions are in the western, central and eastern regions.

A series of cross-sector meetings in the 3 regions were held in June, July and August 2022. The first meeting for the western region was held in Jakarta, attended by various sectors related to the security and safety of journalists such as Journalist associations, national press institutions, national human rights institutions, legal aid organizations, local and national media representatives, and student press representatives. Moving to the central region, Tifa Foundation chose Makassar as the meeting point while in the Eastern region, Jayapura became the location of the cross-sector meeting. The selection of this location is based on 3 national reports including the National Index of Intolerance Cities by SETARA Institute[1], the National Press Freedom Index of the Indonesian Press Council[2], and the Study of Violence Against Women Journalists in Indonesia by PR2Media.

The parties present at this regional meeting included representatives of the Indonesian Press Council, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the Indonesian Student Press Association, academics who focus on related issues, as well as representatives from several local media in the three regions and national media.

Different Regions, Different Challenges
Based on the Press Council's report, violence against journalists in the western region occurred mostly in the Greater Jakarta area, North Sumatra, East Java and Banten. Another crucial issue that needs attention is cases of violence against female journalists. Provinces in the western region with the highest cases include DKI Jakarta, West Java, East Java and North Sumatra (PR2Media, 2022). Meanwhile, in the central region, the condition of violence against journalists can be categorized as low (based on incoming reports). However, it cannot be denied that every year, the number of cases of violence never fails to occur. As explained by A. Fauziah Astrid, an academic from UIN Alauddin Makassar, the trend of violence against journalists in the central region usually increases ahead of the political year, during demonstrations, as well as coverage of agrarian issues, natural resources, and budget fraud committed by local governments.

From eastern Indonesia, the challenge in the field is that many journalists do not understand journalistic ethics, professionalism in work, including many who do not meet regulatory standards. As a result, many journalists are vulnerable to physical, psychosocial and digital violence. Other challenges relate to the strong political nuances of the interests of national actors with security institutions as the main perpetrators of violence, as well as social aspects and geographical conditions that are factors in the occurrence of violence and the low security and safety of journalists in the eastern region. Although the situation in the three regions is different, there is one common thread related to cases of violence against journalists and their handling mechanisms.

First, violence against journalists in Indonesia is dominated by physical violence, such as expulsion of journalists from coverage sites, seizure and destruction of coverage equipment, intimidation, and sexual harassment. Second, there are similarities in the pattern of forming networks between journalist associations and legal aid organizations. For the western region, especially in the Jabodetabek area, there is a strong coalition network, namely the Journalist Safety Committee since 2019.

The pandemic that restricts people's social activities is also considered to have increased cases of violence in the digital realm, such as doxing, terror through smartphones, and hacking of personal devices. For Papua, a prominent journalist who was a resource person at a cross-sector forum in the eastern region stated that digital violence in Papua has increased during the pandemic. The Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Press in 2020 received 12 reports from journalists who experienced digital attacks. Not only from the pattern of violence, the case handling mechanism from 3 regions in Indonesia is also similar. In the meeting, it emerged that there is no standardized mechanism for handling violence against journalists in each region. The most common mechanism is mediation, which does not solve the root of the problem, and the lack of supervision and effective implementation of mechanisms from the Press Council.

From the central region, representatives of LBH Makassar said that several cases of violence, including around 3 to 4 violence against female journalists, could not be investigated. There were also reports of violence that were revoked after the mediation process even though in the view of the law, mediation cannot be used as strong evidence to revoke the report and stop the legal process. The unstructured mechanism for handling cases of violence, especially at the regional level, is an obstacle in the process of resolving cases of violence against journalists. It is undeniable that some cases have stalled due to the absence of standards for handling cases, making them ineffective.

Recommendations and Follow-up
Collaboration among key stakeholders is one of the important recommendations to realize the goals of Safe Journalism in Indonesia. In addition, other ideas that emerged in this meeting as recommendations include:

1. Encourage and ensure that all journalists have comprehensive knowledge of the journalistic code of ethics, risk analysis and prevention and handling of physical, digital and psychosocial security threats, as well as reporting mechanisms and stages for litigation and non-litigation processes.
2. The importance of establishing journalist safety committees at the regional level to strengthen mechanisms for preventing and handling cases of violence against journalists.
3. Ensure that media organizations and companies collaborate to strengthen SOPs for handling cases of physical, digital, and psychosocial violence.
4. Mainstream press freedom and the protection of journalists to law enforcement and government officials at the national and subnational levels as part of upholding democracy and human rights.

The advocacy of Tifa Foundation and the Safe Journalism program consortium will continue for the next 4 years. After this, there will be a cross-sector meeting at the national level involving law enforcement officials, the Press Council, Komnas HAM, journalist associations and other key stakeholders to discuss the results and recommendations from the meetings in the three regions.

In addition, the Safe Journalism consortium will provide capacity building to journalists and citizen journalists on digital, physical and psychosocial security as well as training for police personnel and Komnas HAM on protecting and handling violence against journalists as mandated in international, national and statutory human rights instruments. The road to Safe Journalism is still long, but Tifa Foundation believes that synergistic collaboration, capacity building, and efforts to mainstream the issue of security and safety of journalists to stakeholders and society; will lead to the creation of a safe journalism ecosystem.

[1] Tolerant City Index. SETARA Institute. 2021.
[2] Press Freedom Index. Indonesian Press Council. 2021.