JakartaPost-Feb 24, 2025
The Journalist Safety Index 2024 by the Safe Journalism Consortium, published on Thursday, revealed that violence against media workers remains rampant in Indonesia despite a slight improvement from a score of 59.8 in 2023 to 60.5 last year, putting the country’s journalists in the “somewhat protected” category. Last year saw at least 167 reported cases of violence against journalists, from physical abuse to censorship and cyberattacks, according to the joint report produced by the Tifa Foundation, the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and the Indonesian Association for Media Development (PPMN), with the support of pollster Populix and the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta. The report is based on a survey of 760 active journalists conducted from Oct. 30 to Dec 6, and includes analysis of data from the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) as well as interviews of related stakeholders. One notable finding is that 79 percent of respondents said they felt threatened during the transition of power between the outgoing administration of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his successor Prabowo Subianto. The majority of respondents also expressed concern over the possibility of future bans on coverage. During the report’s launch on Feb. 20, Noudhy Valdryno of the Presidential Communications Office acknowledged the importance of press freedom for both the public and government. “We will try to build more solid communication with the media and also provide [journalists] with better access to information,” Noudhy said. “We should be grateful for this [year’s score], but in the coming years we are hoping [to reach a score that will] put us in the ‘protected’ category,” he added. Mustafa Layong, executive director of the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers), told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that no significant changes had been observed over the past year in guaranteeing a free press in Indonesia, as the Prabowo administration had continued to apply the same “repressive” measures as previous governments. Read more at:
