07 Apr 08 | Comment
A new Indonesian law poses the threat of restrictions on the arts, writes David Jardine
The Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR), after very lengthy debate, has passed into law a bill aimed at outlawing online pornography — this despite the document containing an unclear definition of what constitutes ‘pornography’.
The protracted debate — the bill was introduced in 2005 — has concluded with what appears to be a formula allowing religious legislators to insert easily manipulated concepts such as ‘immorality’ into the law.
Some observers, including Zatni Arbi, the country’s leading information technology commentator, have warned that the new law, which criminalizes the provision, use and transmission of pornographic websites, might in the future be used to shut down other websites carrying information and opinion deemed by the government to be unacceptable.
(more…)
28 Feb 08 | Comment, News and features
The imprisonment of journalist Bersihar Lubis shows how colonial-era laws are being used to stifle historical debate in Indonesia, writes David Jardine
Alarm bells have been ringing among Indonesian media after a late February verdict against Bersihar Lubis, a columnist with the leading Indonesian-language daily Koran Tempo.
Lubis was sentenced to one month in prison for “insulting” state prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO). In an article he wrote in March last year, he condemned the burning of school history textbooks that offered a different interpretation of the traumatic events of 1965-1966 to the official version first put out by the late ex-President Suharto’s military-based New Order regime.
Lubis described the book-burning state prosecutors as “stupid”. Charges were brought against him under Article 207 of the Indonesian Criminal Code (KHUP). This article, which is derives from the Dutch colonial era Haatzai Artikelen (literally “hate articles”), makes it an offence to “insult in public, either verbally or in writing, a public official or public agency”.
(more…)
13 Feb 08 | News and features
Calls for Indonesian journalists to rein themselves in are a reminder of the bad old days of Suharto, writes David Jardine
President Yudhoyono of Indonesia last week called on the national media to practice more self-censorship. Using an open-air public meeting in the central Java capital Semarang, Yudhoyono called for “more responsible and useful” reporting.
Admitting that the current wider freedoms enjoyed by the press and electronic media were won after many years of struggle under the recently deceased Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime, the president nonetheless espoused the ambivalence felt amongst the political class toward the boisterous Indonesian press.
(more…)
01 Jul 91 | Magazine, Magazine Editions, Volume 20.7 July 1991
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