Religious intolerance among Indonesian journalists

Print Page Updated: 02:16:23 AM, Tue 12 February 2013

A survey of Indonesian journalists has found religious intolerance remains high, with 45 per cent of respondents saying Indonesia needs to implement Islamic law.

That figure is a considerable increase from the 2009 survey, where only 37.5 per cent of respondents were in favour of Sharia law.

The study was conducted by the Pantau Foundation between March and May last year and asked 600 print and broadcast journalists around 100 questions on Islam and journalism.

Alex Junaidi, who's with SEJUK, the Indonesian Journalist Association for Diversity, told that the purpose of the survey was to get a perspective into how incidents carried out in the name of religion are reflected in the media and how journalists report these cases.

"They found that the majority of journalists, between 60 and 70 per cent (of those surveyed), have intolerance perspective," he said.

Mr Junaidi said that survey showed some of their reports did not apply some principals of journalism.

"So it's not just about the violence, there's a problem amongst the journalists...they don't produce a balanced report."

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