After decades of authoritarian rule, Indonesia closed its notorious Department of Information three years ago and declared censorship was dead. But journalists, academics and commentators were right to remain cautious.

At best, the new freedom of information and movement has been unevenly upheld. In the northern Indonesian province of Aceh a "show trial" is looming which threatens to revive the intimidation and fear which former president Soeharto employed to suppress news of dissent.

The accused are two Western women detained over alleged visa violations. These are relatively minor offences. However, the women's ordeal at the hands of the police is intended to serve as an example to others seeking to travel to conflict zones such as Aceh. Lesley McCulloch, a former University of Tasmania lecturer, and her American health worker friend, Joy Lee Sadler, attracted the interest of the security forces because of their alleged contact with armed Acehnese separatists and Ms McCulloch's published accounts of harrowing human rights abuses by Indonesia.

One possible outcome is that travel to Aceh – and to West Papua where the authorities are facing a similar campaign for independence – will again be restricted. Until the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998, foreign journalists needed permits to travel to conflict zones. Few were issued. Consequently, much of the information which so damned Jakarta and its soldiers in East Timor was gathered by journalists, researchers and activists posing as tourists who played a vital role in exposing the carnage in East Timor, which led in turn to international military intervention.

The suffering in Aceh, where 10,000 people have died in 26 years of fighting for independence, has not provoked similar international sympathy. Aceh's separatist rebels are hardline Muslims, and the United States is encouraging Jakarta to crush its Islamic extremists. However, it should be remembered that the Acehnese have genuine economic and human rights grievances which predate the US-led war on terrorism.

Still smarting from East Timor's independence vote, Jakarta is determined to put down independence moves elsewhere. But Indonesia is now a democracy, and accountability lies at the core of any democracy. Only with freedom of information will the people of Aceh, and elsewhere, be protected against a revival of the military abuses of the past.