Radio Era Baru closed by the police

“KPI officials and members of the police arrived at around 11 a.m. today and seized our transmitter because we refused to stop broadcasting,” Radio Era Baru director Raymond Tan said. “We reject this Chinese interference with the utmost force as it violates freedom of expression in Indonesia,” Tan said. Tan added that he had received a letter from the KPI (Indonesia Broadcasting Commission) notifying him that he could incur judicial sanctions if he did not quickly shut the station down. (Interview with Raymond Tan) http://www.rsf.org/medias/itv%20Erabaru%20En.mp3 ______________________________________________________________ 18 March 2010 Indonesian Broadcasting Commission urged to grant licence to Radio Era Baru Reporters Without Borders wonders why the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) are refusing to issue a licence to Radio Era Baru, a station based in Batam, in the province of Riau, that broadcasts in local language and Mandarin. “We fear that this obstruction is the result of pressure by China,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Media freedom is a constitutional right in Indonesia so no foreign government should have the right to influence official decisions on such an important subject. If Radio Era Baru is forced to close, it will be a serious violation of the freedom to report news.” Reporters Without Borders has written to the head of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission about the matter. Launched in March 2005, Radio Era Baru is linked to the Falun Gong religious movement. According to its director, Raymond Tan, the station has always complied with Indonesia’s technical requirements including those issued by the Riau branch of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPID), which gave the station permission to broadcast. The Indonesian government’s refusal since 2007 to grant the station a licence is believed to be linked to the fact that it broadcasts many reports about human rights violations in China, including violations of the rights of Falun Gong followers and Tibetans. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s frequency monitoring centre in Batam (Balai Monitor Frekuensi) wrote to the station on 28 March 2008 instructing it to stop broadcasting on the grounds that it did not have a licence. But the authorities have always refused to explain why they refuse to issue a licence. Radio Era Baru referred the case to the courts in 2008 and, after several unconvincing rulings, it is now before the supreme court. “The case reached the supreme court in 2009 but, without waiting for its ruling, the ministry sent us five letters ordering us to stop broadcasting,” Tan said. “Coming in the middle of an appeal procedure, this order is outrageous and unethical,” he added. The Falun Gong movement has meanwhile released what it claims is a copy of a letter which the Chinese embassy in Indonesia sent to the foreign ministry calling on the Indonesian authorities to terminate the station’s broadcasts. The Indonesian Human Rights Committee (Komnas Ham Indonesia) publicly urged the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission on 10 March 2010 to explain its actions.