FOTP 2013 Full Report

media outlets openly reflecting the political or business interests of their proprietors. As thecountry prepared for the 2014 presidential election, wealthy politicians and businessmen furtherconsolidated their press empires in 2012. Although many Indonesians remained hopeful thatthese media moguls would continue to compete with one another, the possibility remained thatvarious political interests could form alliances and create monopolies that would limit mediaindependence in ways not seen since the Suharto dictatorship. A study conducted in late 2011 bythe nonprofit groups Hivos Southeast Asia and the Center for Innovation, Policy, andGovernance found that nearly all of the 12 most prominent media companies had ties to politicalparties in some respect. For example, Aburizal Bakrie, a powerful business magnate andchairman of the Golkar party, owns tvOne and ANTV. The rival Media Group, owned by SuryaPaloh, founder and patron of the National Democratic Party, includes Metro TV and thenewspaper Media Indonesia.Advertising remains a robust source of income for newspapers and television companies,and the shift to online news sources has been slow. Working conditions for Indonesianjournalists remain poor. According to AJI, media companies do not pay competitive salaries totheir employees, which can lead some journalists to take second jobs with corporate sponsors orrequest bribes for coverage.In 2012, the internet was accessed by 15 percent of the population. There are nogovernment restrictions on access, but the lack of high-speed infrastructure outside the majorcities limits the medium’s use as a news source. Social-media sites such as YouTube, Twitter,and Facebook have become extremely prominent in Indonesia, and they are generally accessedwithout interference.IranStatus: Not FreeLegal Environment: 30Political Environment: 38Economic Environment: 24Total Score: 92Survey Edition 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Total Score, Status 85,NF 85,NF 89,NF 91,NF 92,NFThe government sustained its crackdown on the media in 2012, as scores of journalists werethreatened, beaten, arrested, subjected to unfair trials, and imprisoned, particularly in the run-upto parliamentary elections in March. The authorities extended the use of intimidation andharassment to journalists’ family members. The media environment in Iran, which remained oneof the most repressive in the world, was also affected by further outlet closures and systematicinternet censorship.Constitutional provisions and laws restrict what can be covered in the press and fail toprovide protections for the media. The government regularly invokes vaguely worded laws tocriminalize dissenting opinions. Article 24 of the constitution guarantees freedom of the press,but with a broad exception for content that is deemed “detrimental to the fundamental principlesof Islam or the rights of the public.” The Press Law, first drafted in 1986 and amended in 2000,207