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UPDATED VERSION. FOOYOH! This piece of news from Seberang should set you thinking hard at a time when our deputy minister confessed, albeit unashamedly, that he DID remind and reprimand editors in the mainstream press to toe the line.

Indonesia's senior journalists gathered for a forum on press freedom at the Habibie Center in Jakarta recently.

One of the participants, Atmakusumah Astraatmadja, 68, a journalist in the league of Mochtar Lubis when the Indonesia Raya newspaper was in circulation, said that press freedom must be guaranteed by law.

"Journalists must not be detained on charges of false reports without due legal process. Judges should only impose proportional fines, as America does," Atma said.

Internet surveillance and control

This is how he observes present day press freedom vis-a-vis Internet control in Indonesia, as reported by The Jakarta Post:

The (Indonesian) government is currently planning to tighten internet surveillance to tackle cyber crimes such as terrorism and credit card fraud. Indonesia ranks as the second highest source for such crimes after the Ukraine. The government says the plan is not aimed at preventing anyone from accessing particular websites.

In response, an Indonesian government spokesman gave Internet surveillance and control a defining moment at the expense of Malaysia alongside another notorious repressive regime. Quote from The Jakarta Post:

"Even though the system will track anyone who accesses websites, this surveillance system will not block anyone from accessing any links," Communication and Information Ministry spokesman, Gatot Dewa Subroto, told The Jakarta Post.

"The system is not being developed to prevent people from being critical of certain parties (including the government). ," he said.

Listen folks! Atmakusumah was the recipient of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communications Arts. In the citation, the board of trustees of the Award praised his role in laying the institutional and professional foundations for a new era of press freedom in Indonesia.

The only recipient of a Magsaysay Award for journalism from Malaysia is none other than Pak Samad, in 1994. One of Pak Samad's daughter is now a blogger who walks with us.

Final words... I don't know who Gatot Dewa Subroto is. In his eyes... shame on us.