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Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 21:23:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list
Indonesia is joining the rest of the world in cracking down on online
speech. Perhaps the lesson here is that no matter how much the Internet
supposedly "routes around censorship," the most vulnerable points are the
humans on both ends. More info on the global net-crackdown is at:
http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/
-Declan
---
http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/34/special0a.html
HotWired, The Netizen
19 August 1996
Trouble in Paradise
by Declan McCullagh ([email protected])
Washington, DC, 18 August
Indonesian democracy activists have taken their fight for freedom
to the Net, and the government doesn't approve.
After distributing email messages about riots in Jakarta last month to
an international Indonesian-politics mailing list, Prihadi Beny
Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian University, was arrested
and interrogated by the military. Since then, the mailing list has
been banned from the country and Waluyo has returned to his house,
where he remains under surveillance.
Until now, Indonesian cyberspace has been relatively free, with no
regulations or laws explicitly restricting online discussions. By
contrast, newspapers and magazines are subject to strict censorship,
following a 1984 ministerial decree requiring the press to obtain
licenses from the government.
[...]
"He [Waluyo] was arrested and accused of sending messages to Holland
and printing out photocopies," said Sidney Jones, executive director
of Human Rights Watch/Asia. "The army is out to stop any kind of
discussion of the riots."
The censor-happy regime of President Suharto tried to stop journalists
from reporting on the outbreaks of violence - which shattered his
carefully cultivated image of a stable Indonesia. The worst domestic
disturbance in a decade, the uprising started after police stormed the
headquarters of an opposition party and ejected anti-government
activists from the building...
[...]
---
August 14, 1996
His Excellency M. Arifin Siregar
Ambassador to the United States
Embassy of Indonesia
2020 Mass. Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Your Excellency:
I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch/Asia to protest the
arrest of Drs. Prihadi Beny Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian
University. Drs. Waluyo was arrested at his home by soldiers of the
district military command. He was reportedly accused of distributing
e-mail messages and also of sending messages relating to the July 27 riots
to a destination in Holland. His arrest came after an unidentified person
gave an officer photocopies of e-mail messages that were traced to Drs.
Waluyo. The person claimed the printouts came from a store in Kebumen, a
district of Yogyakarta.
Following his arrest, Drs. Waluyo was interrogated by the military
about his connections with the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD), which the
government has accused of masterminding the riots, but he denied any
involvement with the PRD. He acknowledged that he had sent messages over
the Internet. Following his questioning, he was reportedly ordered to go
to his home and was told to report to the district military command on a
regular basis. He is said to be under strict surveillance.
Human Rights Watch opposes actions by the Indonesian government to
restrict electronic communication. As stated in Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.
We believe that such forums provide a truly unique opportunity for people
from around the globe to share their views with an international audience.
By allowing unrestricted communication, important issues can receive the
benefit of serious discussion by the broadest cross-section of society. If
the Internet is to achieve its potential to become a global information
infrastructure, it is important, at the present moment, to agree to allow
its unrestricted development.
We urge that Drs. Waluyi and every other citizen be allowed to
receive and transmit electronic mail without fear of harassment,
intimidation, or arrest.
Sincerely,
Sidney Jones
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch/Asia
cc: His Excellency Nugroho Wisnumurti, Ambassador to the United Nations
---
[Thanks to Bruce Sterling for this excerpt. --Declan]
>From the INDEX ON CENSORSHIP web site:
http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/
INDONESIA
It was reported in May that the government has banned the book Bayang Bayang
PKI (In the Shadows of the PKI). Published by the Institute for Studies on
the Free Flow of Information (ISAI), it focuses on the 1965-1966 events
leading to the assumption of power by President Soeharto. It is now a
criminal offence for any person to process, publish, distribute, trade or
reprint the book. (A19)
The government has put pressure on the media to report positively on
government-backed efforts to oust the leader of the opposition Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI), Megawati Sukarno-putri. On 2 June army officers
invited most of Indonesia's chief editors to attend media briefings where,
among other things, they were told not to use the words 'unseat' or 'topple'
in their reporting.
A rally in Jakarta organised by members loyal to Megawati on 20 June was
broken up by troops, who killed at least one of the protesters, and arrested
hundreds. Erwin Hadi, photographer with the weekly Sinar, Iqbal Wahyudin of
CNN, Tomohiko Ohtsuka of Mainichi Shimbun and Reuters photographer Enny
Nuraheini were among the journalists injured by soldiers during the rally.
Local stations were also banned by the government from broadcasting images
of the protest or from helping foreign news agencies feed their pictures of
the rally abroad. Megawati was finally ousted as PDI leader on 22 June.
(Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information)
The Supreme Court voted on 13 June to uphold the government's ban on the
independent newsweekly Tempo (Index 4&5/1994, 3/1995, 1/1996). The Court
ruled that the information minister has the right to revoke publishing
licences since he also has the right to issue them. (Institute for Studies
on the Free Flow of Information)
Index Index incorporates information from the American Association for the
Advancement of
Science Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN), Amnesty International (AI),
Article 19
(A19), the BBC Monitoring Service Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), the
Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists
(CCPJ), the
Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ/FIP), the
International Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FIEJ), Human Rights Watch
(HRW), the Media
Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), International PEN (PEN), Open Media
Research Institute
(OMRI), Reporters Sans Frontires (RSF), the World Association of Community
Broadcasters
(AMARC) and other sources
###