The Government of Timor-Leste, through the Secretariat of State of the Council of Ministers (Portuguese acronym SECM), encouraged the Timor-Leste press to participate in a comparative study in the Indonesian Press Council. This initiative, with the purpose of gaining experience for the future creation of the Timor-Leste Press Council, took place in Jakarta between the 21st and the 24th of February.
“At the moment, Timor-Leste is in the phase of creating regulations regarding the Mass Media Communication activities. As SECM General-Director, the responsible institution for the Mass Media Communications area, I’m confidant that, through this study, the Timor-Leste press delegation can obtain more experience”, highlighted Victor Maia.
In this initiative, the President of the Indonesian Press Council, Bagir Manan, stated “the experience that the Timor-Leste delegation was able to obtain in this study can serve as reference in the future, for the creation of the Timor-Leste Press Council, where the Indonesian Press Council promises to cooperate.”
The Timor-Leste delegation seeked to understand about the experience and the history of the creation of the Council, namely in what concerns the member’s composition, the independence in the functional context, the Indonesian subsidiary law, the relevance with the process of creation of the Timor-Leste Press Council, the budget, the process of elaborating the Journalistic Code of Conduct, the resolution model that refers the rights of journalists, who the journalists are, what is the relation between the Press Council and the State, the number of existing press organizations and the owners of the companies where the journalists work.
Besides visiting to the Indonesian Press Council in Jakarta, the Timor-Leste delegation also carried out a visit to the Independent Journalists Alliance and to the Indonesian Journalists Unity.
The Timor-Leste delegation that participated in this study was composed by: SECM General Director, Victor Maia, SECM International Legal Adviser for Mass Communication, Sofia Calado; SECM National Legal Adviser for Mass Communication, Gina Lopes, SECM Chief of Department for Mass Communication from the National Direction for Dissemination of Information, Orlando da Conceição; National Advisor for Mass Communication from the Prime Minister Office, António Ramos Naikoli, Press-Club General-Secretary, Mouzinho Lopes, President of the Timor-Leste Journalist Union, Otelio Ote, Vice-President of the Timor-Leste Journalists Association, Rosário Martins and the President interim of the RTTL Council of Administration, Expedito Dias Ximenes.