Media Must Be Objective On Reporting About Religious Matter, Observer

Jakarta ( Berita ) : Austria‘s diplomat for Interfaith and Intercultural affairs, Dr Elisabeth Karamat, said here Tuesday that media should be more objective when reporting about religious matter.

The diplomat make the remark during a public lecture about “Media and Interfaith Harmony” held by the Centre for Dialogue and Cooperation Among Civilisations (CDCC) in their office at Menteng, Central Jakarta.

 Karamat explained that, sometimes,  media only get the information of their countries’ foreign policy from their ministry of foreign affairs. This, she said, had created one-sided information and , eventually, would create certain opinion in people’s mind about a foreign issue.

 However, Karamat also reminded the media to be balanced. Media, she said, should respect religion and religious activity while keeping their principle of freedom to speak.

 She took example of the cartoon of Islamic’s prophet, Muhammad SAW, which was recently protested by Moslem around the world. One one hand, she said, the media which publishing it had the freedom of press, while on the other hand, Islam felt offended by the cartoon.

 Karamat was councellor at the Permanent Representatives of Austria to the european Union in Brussles, Belgium. She was choosen to give public lecture in CDCC’s office because of her doctoral thesis with topic Christian-Islamic Dialogue in Austrian Foreign Policy. Currently, Karamat is working in Indonesia‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Deplu) in Jakarta in the context of an exchange program of diplomats between Indonesia and Austria. ( ant )