In the years since I visited Indonesia in 1999 as a Knight International Press Fellow, it has been heartening to watch post-Soeharto democracy take hold. Since I left in July 1999, Indonesia has changed presidents three times -- each time by constitutional processes, including, most recently, direct election. There has been little or no interference by the military. All of that has been a huge step forward.

While these changes have occurred peacefully, and the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono government has negotiated ditente with Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh, Indonesia continues to find the path to democracy bumpy, as it has been in most countries, including the United States in its early decades.

The bump I wish to write about now is the proposed restriction on the broadcast of foreign-origin news by Indonesian radio and television stations. My impression at this great distance is that the restriction is well intended by Sofyan Djalil, the State Minister for Information and Communications. But it is a bad idea.

Pak Sofyan has said that one purpose is to protect Indonesians from exposure to antidemocratic ideas that might be broadcast by North Korea or Mongolia. The regulation would also impede the transmission of news and comment from the Netherlands, Germany, America, Britain and other democracies.

That is a worthy purpose, one which the United States government has sponsored through A.I.D. money for years. It is to foster independent reporting and publishing that the Knight Foundation, a non government organization, has sent me and other American journalists to Indonesia to work with Indonesian journalists.

In 1999, I found newspaper reporters and editors eager to explore the new freedom that had come with the repeal in 1998 of the press restrictions of former President Soeharto. After 32 years of official news management, these newly free journalists wondered how far they could go. I encouraged them to pursue independent reporting -- not only about the Jakarta government but also in local matters such as health services, schools, corruption and pollution.

Indonesian editors were concerned about the post-Soeharto proliferation of publications, some of which were devoted to display of female skin and lurid reporting of crime and sex. The editors wondered how such publications could be suppressed without compromising freedom of the press.

Pak Sofyan is concerned about exposing Indonesians to anti-democratic broadcasts from North Korea, or perhaps to those in other countries which advocate the use of terrorism for political, religious or ideological goals. Does he think the people of Indonesia are easily misled?

A private radio station is free to choose what programs -- domestic or foreign -- it wishes to broadcast. A station can impose a delay of several seconds or even a minute or two so that it has a chance to review the content of its "feed" from abroad. (Call-in programs do that to keep profane language off the air.). If broadcasters are free to exercise their discretion, they will develop mature judgment about what to transmit and what to edit or omit.

I expect that many Indonesian stations would not rebroadcast appeals to terrorism, bigotry and violence, especially after two bombings in Bali and intermittent sectarian violence in Indonesia. If stations do diffuse such material, they will have to answer to their listeners, viewers -- and perhaps their advertisers.

There may be a risk that some stations will broadcast anti-democratic propaganda, as the minister worries. Yet, that is a better option for a democracy than the risk that flows from a government's deciding what its citizens may hear (or read). Such censorship is a step down a slippery slope, one that tempts governments to censor first ideas from abroad, then ideas circulating at home, then outright criticism of the government.

A democracy whose government suppresses the expression of information and ideas, foreign or domestic, is at risk. Democracy thrives on a free and open exchange of information and ideas. Suppress that, as Soeharto did, and democracy is starved of its lifeblood and will be in peril.

Fortunately, there was much unfavorable reaction to the proposed regulation and the government suspended it. Now, the effective date has been set for Feb. 5. Pak Sofyan and President Yudhoyono would be wise to withdraw the regulation and let Indonesia's broadcasters demonstrate their discretion and maturity.

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