The National Human Rights Commission has a new task: to monitor 'unethical journalism'.
Journalists in what is already a heavily restricted society have labelled the move a further erosion of press freedom.
Most of the media is either government-owned or -linked and a raft of laws control publication.
'Suhakam (the human rights commission) should not police the media but campaign to repeal the suffocating laws that control press freedom and publication,' said Padmaja Padman, a journalist who co-ordinates an independent media campaign group.
'Can Suhakam watch the media when it has failed to obtain the most crucial human right of all, freedom of expression?'
The new media watchdog committee will receive and investigate public complaints of human rights violations by the media.
