F

or years, police raids have become a regular part of shows on Indonesian television.

Net TV, for example, airs a reality show called Net86. It follows police on raids and reveals their personal lives as they are pursuing their regular duties.

“About three years ago, the image of the police was being talked about a lot in the communities, but not in a positive way because of certain cases, so I thought: Let’s make a program to create a better image for the police,” said Mbarrep Desto Kuncoro, producer of Net86. “We realized that ‘86’ was not a good term to remember the cops by because it’s associated with bribery to avoid ticketing, but it’s a term that’s very familiar to the police.”

During its broadcast, the show became engulfed in various controversies. Netizens have complained that some officers were shown violating people’s privacy, ignoring standard procedures and making the subjects of their raids into laughing stocks.

An example of this was one episode, from which footage was later uploaded onto Facebook, showing a group of officers raiding a hotel room and catching two men in possession of condoms, lubricants and women’s pyjamas. While police were interrogating the men over why they had those items, several officers were seen laughing.

The footage triggered online criticisms about the police lacking respect for privacy and being prejudiced against certain sexual orientations.

“In Indonesia, there are some regulations that could touch on the private sphere of society. Today there is still a debate over whether a hotel room is a public area or a private area. For me, the front office is a public area, but the room is private,” said the vice chairman of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), Rahmat Arifin.

Based on Articles 13 and 14 of the Broadcasting Code of Conduct and Program Standards, a broadcast program should respect the right to privacy of individuals by not judging the subjects of a broadcast content, or mocking their private lives.

Article 21 prohibits the stigmatization of gender or sexuality from being broadcast.

Police often raid hotel rooms to find people engaged in adultery and there is a common assumption that most of the time officers tend to ignore proper protocol, which results in violations of privacy rights.

This, however, was disputed by Mbarrep, who claimed that none of the raids aired on Net86 violated protocol.

“[The police] always follow procedures and requirements, but the point of this show is the action and chronology, so [those that violated procedures] would not be aired,” he said.

In regards to privacy, Mbarrep said the Net86 team aimed to educate the audience about violations of laws while trying to protect the people’s privacy and rights. “We don’t want to disgrace the [alleged] perpetrators. We just want to educate the people who watch this show. We try to blur their faces on screen,” he said.

Regarding the criticism that police tend to commit violence Mbarrep said, “We try to create a show that is as safe as possible, but still entertaining. If it turns out that they committed violence, we will cut [it from the footage].”

Rahmat also said controversial footage should not be aired. “When they broadcast the raid, no kind of violence is tolerated. If they broadcast any violence, the KPI will give an administrative warning,” he said.
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— The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.