Online Petition Sparks Push for Stricter Tobacco Reforms in Indonesia

A grass-roots campaign to snuff out Indonesia’s ubiquitous tobacco advertising is gaining traction online as thousands of anti-smoking advocates urged the Ministry of Technology and Communication to ban cigarette ads in mass media.

Indonesia is the only country in Southeast Asia, and one of the few in the world, to still allow cigarette ads on television. Tobacco ads can air between 9:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. and are barred from showing people smoking or cigarette boxes under the country’s 2002 Broadcast Law.
The regulation has been seen as a limited attempt to rein in tobacco companies, which spent $202 million in 2010 advertising on everything from concert stages to motorcycle taxi stalls. But the law, which still allows print, radio and television ads, as well as corporate sponsorship and billboards, doesn’t go far enough, said Usman Hamid, co-founder of the Indonesian chapter of Change.org.
The organization spearheaded an anti-tobacco petition pushing for greater cigarette regulation. The response, Usman said, has been overwhelming.
“We managed to obtain more than 5,000 signatures in only a few days,” he said. “We can only imagine how many people are bothered by these cigarette ads.”
Usman, and his peers at Change.org, said nowhere in Indonesia is safe from cigarette smoke. Malls, restaurants and airports all have designated smoking areas. Smokers are free to light up anywhere in clubs, bars and at concert events — many of which are sponsored by tobacco companies and feature women handing out free packs to spectators.
Indonesian men rank among the world’s top smokers. Some 67 percent of adult males smoke cigarettes, according to data compiled by the National Socio-Economic Survey, the Basic Health Care Survey and the Global Adult Tobacco Survey.
Children are exposed to cigarette ads at an early age. According to World Health Organization data, three out of four Indonesians between the ages of 13 and 15 have seen some form of tobacco advertising. Videos of tobacco-addicted toddlers have gone viral on YouTube, prompting news reports across the globe.
Tobacco taxes are lax, individual cigarettes sell for pennies and efforts to reform the industry are met with heavy resistance from tobacco farmers, companies and murky organizations that accuse the West of mounting an attack on clove cigarettes.
Similar campaigns for reform are underway in neighboring countries like the Philippines, where tobacco advertising has been banned from television. Anti-smoking advocates in both the Philippines and Indonesia are pushing for graphic health warnings on cigarette boxes, like those available in Thailand and Singapore.
But in a nation of 74 million smokers, prospects for future reforms remain cloudy.