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MINISTER UNDERSCORES IMPORTANCE OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Denpasar, Bali, Antara News, 7 May 2008
Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirayuda said freedom of expression was a basic human right as an essential component of any democratic system.
Commenting on a controversy over the publication of cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad, and the highly emotional reaction that they triggered all over the Muslim world, Wirayuda said the cartoons were extremely irreverent way of depicting the prophet.
He made the statement in his speech to open the 3rd Global Inter-Media Dialog (GIMD) being participated in by around 130 media people from some 60 countries to discuss various issues related to mass media development.
"Therefore, there is no denying that freedom of expression is a basic human right, and curtailing that right through violence is a crime against human nature," Wirayuda said.
He added that since all human beings were endowed with that right, it was an essential component of any democratic system.
"That is why freedom of expression and freedom of the press were the first civic freedoms that we restored in Indonesia when we launched our democratic transition," the minister said.
He said that without freedom of the press, without the freedom to speak and to write against corruption and the abuse of power, the pervasive reform of Indonesian society would not have been possible.
By exercising its freedom of expression with courage and devotion, Wirayuda said, the press had helped in the shaping of the new Indonesia.
"Freedom of expression is a political, social and economic imperative - but it is not an absolute freedom," he said, adding that no freedom was absolute.
He said freedom of expression was limited by, among other things, the rights of others to a good name, and therefore there were laws on libel and slander.
Hence, he said, no group or individual should be allowed to make an object of ridicule anything that was sacred to a community`s religion because it would be an act of reckless malice.
"But that act of reckless malice, though condemnable, is no warrant for retaliation by massive violence. It is even more condemnable to commit murder and mayhem in reaction to an abuse of the freedom of expression," Wirayuda said. |
