Censorship in Indonesia
That policy of integration and repression continued into the New Order period which lasted from 1966 to 1998; during that era the total number of news publications were severely limited and could have their licenses pulled for printing materials the government did not like.
Before the Twentieth century, censorship in the Dutch East Indies was mostly focused on the European-language press and books and ensuring that trade or military facts did not fall into the hands of enemy nations, or in protecting the reputation of government officials.
[3] It was only in the 1910s, with the rise of Indonesian nationalism, that Dutch authorities began to focus on the colony's growing vernacular press, which was printed mainly in Malay but also in Javanese, Chinese, and other languages.
In 1914 it passed the so-called "Hate-sowing articles" (Haatzaai artikelen) which attached criminal consequences to any speech which was deemed to disturb the peace between races; this often included criticism of colonial officials or European rule.
[5] In the 1930s, censorship and political repression, especially of Indonesians, escalated to the point of operating essentially as a police state, with regular intimidation, extralegal detention, and exile of journalists and intellectuals.
[6][7] A new Press Curbing Ordinance (Persbreidelordonnatie) was passed in 1931 which gave the Governor General extreme powers to detain, blacklist, censor or imprison editors.
[12] Indonesians were also mobilized or forced to support the Japanese effort and many artists and intellectuals were recruited to create propaganda or art that met strict constraints.
[16] Following the departure of the Dutch from most of Indonesia after the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference, the Indonesian Republic began a period of Liberal democracy which initially had few forms of official censorship.
[3] In August 1951 many journalists, trade unionists and left-wing politicians were also arrested without charge by the Soekiman Cabinet, although this relied on emergency powers and not censorship laws.
[15] For example, ambiguous regulations allowed journalists to be held responsible by local authorities for printing inaccurate facts which could cause public disorder.
[35] Resurgent anti-Western sentiment, shared by both Sukarno and his allies in the Communist Party, caused censorship and unofficial suppression of Western books, films and music as well.
[27] After that wave of closures the army, fearing a media landscape which was dominated by the communist press, opened new publications of its own, such as Berita Yudha, which was launched in February 1965.
[27] The fall of Sukarno and the Transition to the New Order in 1966–67 ushered in a new period of political repression and censorship, especially against leftists, communists, or perceived enemies of the Suharto regime.
[3] Following this law, many regulations and ministerial decrees were put in place which gave the government strong powers to suppress or censor almost any printed materials it found objectionable, although the Press Council needed to be consulted before newspapers could be banned.
[43] The publication of fiction and a rich cultural life continued during this period; however, novelists and writers often self-censored to fit with government regulations and ideology, or else remained quite marginal.
[44] As in the colonial era, publishers were required to send two copies of books to government censors within 48 hours of publication, and if they were found to be unfit they could be arbitrarily banned.
[38] Topics which were taboo for books or news publications included ethnicity, inter-group relations, politicized religion, the 1945 Indonesian constitution, the family of president Suharto, military activities, and many other thing which could be said to disturb social order.
[46][47][3] Allegations of fraud in the 1977 Indonesian legislative election were also strictly censored, and in 1978 some newspapers including Kompas and Sinar Harapan were temporarily closed for coverage of student protests.
[12] Likewise Deliar Noer was blacklisted from teaching in 1974 for his historical writings, and in the 1980s a book of oral history on the 1948 and 1965 coup attempts written by Siauw Giok Tjhan was banned.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer's anti-colonial epic series Buru Tetralogy, starting with This Earth of Mankind (written while imprisoned in the 1970s and published in 1980), was banned by the Attorney General in 1981, although other similar novels such a Y.
[12] In the 1990s, the final decade of the New Order, the government's repressive policies around film and print materials became increasingly at odds with the expectations of the growing middle class.
[12] One of the most dramatic examples of official censorship of the late New Order period took place in 1994, when the government pulled the licenses of Tempo, Editor, and Detik; this was the first major banning of publications since the 1970s.
[37] Other publications continued to be censored occasionally; in 1995 the student newspaper Sintesa from Gadjah Mada University was shut down for printing an article about the 1965 coup attempt.
[12] The government was also more careful about book censorship in the second half of the 1990s; a new novel by Pramoedya Ananta Toer was allowed to be sold for several months in 1995 until the Attorney General finally banned it.
[49] During the period of liberalization following the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, commonly known by its Indonesian name Reformasi, most forms of official censorship were abolished and there was a rapid expansion of new book publishing and news media.
A large number of new small presses opened in cities with vibrant university presences, including Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bandung and Medan; the turnover in the industry was also influenced by the 1997 Asian financial crisis which had hit major publishers hard.
[54][55][52][35] Likewise the novels of Ahmad Tohari, which had been in print but heavily self-censored by the publisher Gramedia because of its sympathetic portrayal of communists, were re-released in their original form.
[66] The internet is also widely and arbitrarily censored in Indonesia; the Kominfo, which is responsible for it, bans or shuts down websites and services with no due process if they are deemed to be illegal, provocative, or even critical of the government.
[68][69] On 10 June 2020, Human Rights Watch urged the Indonesian authorities to drop all charges against seven Papuan activists and students, who are on trial for their involvement in anti-racism protests last year in August.
Human Rights Watch urged the Indonesia's Khairun University to reinstate the four students who were expelled and support academic freedom and free expression.
