The best way to address censorship is to resist it, veteran Indonesian writer Goenawan Mohamad said.

"You have to fight it... you cannot complain about it and not fight it," he said in a dialogue with writers at the inaugural KataKatha Festival in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

He was responding to a question on how Indonesian society deals with censorship, and how Malaysians can learn from this so it does not hinder the growth of the arts and expression.

Goenawan, the founding editor of critical Indonesian magazine Tempo , said there is little formal state censorship in Indonesia today.

For example, he said, the state-funded Indonesian pavilion at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair included a discussion on the 1965 massacre of communists, a taboo topic in Indonesia.

However, he noted, a session on the same topic at this year's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival was canned due to pressure by vested interests.

"Ubud Writers Festival should have resisted," he told the audience at the festival on culture and arts in Southeast Asia.

Resisting censorship, however, does have repercussions, said the poet and activist.

"You may end up in jail," he said, matter-of-factly.

Tempo was forced to go underground when it was shut down by the Suharto administration for four years, beginning in 1994.

Several of its journalists were jailed for defying the ban.

Censorship is also pervasive in Malaysia.

Human Rights Watch, in a damning report last month, said freedom of expression in Malaysia is under threat , with vague laws like the Sedition Act used rampantly to silence critics.

The government, however, said that the report is an exaggeration.