Ministry of Foreign Affairs building – Jubi
Jayapura, Jubi – The government’s team tasked with monitoring the activity of foreign journalists, known as Clearing House, has been renamed ‘Foreign Affairs Monitoring Team of Indonesia’, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said.
“But its tasks and responsibilities remain the same, namely to monitor foreign journalists,” he was quoted by by Antara News Agency as saying Tuesday after attending a seminar on access for foreign journalists in Papua .
According to him, the existing ‘clearing house’ under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was often in spotlight.
“It is basically intended to protect national interests and to maintain national sovereignty,” he explained.
Thus, any foreign journalists who intend to come to Indonesia, especially Papua and West Papua provinces, have to follow proper procedures, for instance the immigration law and so on. They should propose an application to do reportage or filmmaking and letter of reference from the media company.
Regarding to coverage about Papua and access for foreign journalists, he said some parties were aggressively spreading false news about human right violations, acts of violence of security forces and development gap in Papua. He said this could harm national interests. (Victor Mambor/rom)
