From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 01:39:07 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960819070454.9452B-100000@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain






---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 21:23:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
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 (declan@well.com)
   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

###