Indonesian Radio Station Under Threat, China Pressure Suspected

Indonesian radio station threatened of closure following pressure from Chinese embassy, says lawyer.
Indonesian Radio Station Under Threat, China Pressure Suspected
Lawyer for Radio Erabaru, Soleh Ali, shows a warning letter threatening to close the station at a press conference Feb. 22, 2010. (The Epoch Times)
Charlotte Cuthbertson
3/4/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Soleh_Ali_22Feb2010.jpg" alt="Lawyer for Radio Erabaru, Soleh Ali, shows a warning letter threatening to close the station at a press conference Feb. 22, 2010. (The Epoch Times)" title="Lawyer for Radio Erabaru, Soleh Ali, shows a warning letter threatening to close the station at a press conference Feb. 22, 2010. (The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1821823"/></a>
Lawyer for Radio Erabaru, Soleh Ali, shows a warning letter threatening to close the station at a press conference Feb. 22, 2010. (The Epoch Times)
Mr. Huang listens to Radio Erabaru between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p. m. most days.

But he may not be able to listen for much longer, if the Chinese Embassy in Indonesia can exert enough pressure on the local broadcasting agency. “There are some programs that are very good,” Mr. Huang said. “I like the Chinese news and the Falun Dafa stories.”

It is these stories about human rights abuses in China that prompted the Chinese Embassy to send a stern, unsigned letter to four Indonesian government ministries, including the Indonesian Broadcasting Committee.

The letter, sent in 2007, warns of damaged relations between the two countries if Erabaru continues to operate. The letter pressured the ministries to closely monitor and close down Radio Erabaru. The other ministries targeted were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Intelligence, and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Radio Erabaru syndicates independent China news from Sound of Hope Radio (SOH), a network that has been consistently jammed in its broadcasts into China. Some SOH contributors in China have been jailed by authorities for helping expose human rights violations within the mainland. Erabaru, located in Batam, Indonesia, has served the Chinese population since March 2005 but also reaches an estimated 70 percent of Singapore.

In August 2008, the station was denied a broadcast license extension. In the ensuing years, Radio Erabaru requested from and pressed KPI for a written answer to why the license was withdrawn and got no clear answer. They filed against the cancellation to civilian court and lost. Erabaru is now appealing to the Supreme Court.

The Communications and Information Technology Ministry, through the Radio Frequency Monitoring Center (BMSFR) has sent four warning letters to Erabaru to stop broadcasting, the most recent received on Feb. 15.

Station director Raymond Tan claims there are hundreds of radio stations in Indonesia operating with less documentation than Erabaru. “But the government did not warn them to stop broadcasting,” he said. “The question is why the government only warns us to stop broadcasting.”

Tan and defense counsel Soleh Ali of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) said the station was awaiting a decision on their 2008 appeal for their broadcast license extension when the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (KPI) changed the frequency of Erabaru Radio so that it clashed with that of another station. KPI then claimed that the 106.5 FM that Erabaru was using was an “unpermitted frequency,” which it maintains is one of the reasons for shutting the station down.

The Radio Frequency Spectrum Monitoring Center and its head, P. Perangin Angin, who sent the letter to the station on Feb. 15, told the Jakarta Post that “Radio Erabaru must stop its broadcasting activities because it uses the unpermitted frequency. This is purely technical.”

Tan and Soleh disagree. They say the real reason is pressure from the Chinese Communist Party. “The Chinese regime is behind the effort to close our radio station because we are considered to continuously air news about Falun Gong,” Tan said at a press conference on Feb. 22. “We air news [about Falun Gong] because it is newsworthy.”

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, ordered to be eradicated after its popularity grew exponentially in the 1990s. It is heavily persecuted by the Chinese regime and information about the persecution is routinely suppressed by Beijing around the world.

Attorney Soleh said they will continue to fight what they say is a breach of Indonesian law. “The Communications and IT Ministry has no reason to tell us to stop broadcasting. This is a form of press freedom suppression. News about the persecution of Falun Gong in China is just [as relevant] as Iraq.”

The case has attracted international attention. Support for Erabaru includes letters from members of the European Parliament.

Vice-President of the European Union Edward McMillan-Scott wrote to Indonesian President H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Jan. 13. “It is well-documented that Beijing maintains complete control over all media in China, and attempts to control media flow out of the country,” McMillan-Scott wrote. “However, it is still up to the free world in how they react to such an attempt.” He has also made an appeal for Erabaru to Indonesia’s Supreme Court judge, the Hon. Judge Tumpa.

Former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour has also written to President Yudhoyono, saying he finds it “deeply troubling that a foreign government [China] with a well-documented record for systematically violating its own citizens dignity and their basic human rights” could pressure Indonesia into shutting down a domestic radio station.

Kilgour has been recently nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, along with fellow Canadian attorney David Matas, for their international human rights advocacy work.

In the meantime, while Erabaru fights for its survival, Mr. Huang will continue to listen to independent news about China.

With additional reporting by Hong Wen and Ming Wei.