Jakarta – A local human rights organization has accused the government of violating the right to freedom of expression. The Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) said that the government was monitoring and recording the online activities of Internet users.
The Information and Communications Ministry recently announced plans to form an "Internet Watchmen" team to prevent online crime among local users, a move that the proven unpopular, with various groups deeming it unconstitutional. The decrees stipulates that the government must set up such an Internet monitoring team to prevent "abuses" including terrorist threats.
HRWG coordinator Rafendi Djamin said the government had stopped the process of freedom of speech by establishing a group that could create interruptions.
"They want to watch for political movement," he said. "The minister of communications and information has created an extra-judicial mechanism to monitor us through the World Wide Web," Rafendi told The Jakarta Post.
"We reject any form of monitoring that could distort the right to information, to express and communicate because this would threaten the process of democracy and dwarf people's political awareness," he added.
He added that if any security threats were made or discovered through the Internet then it should be the role of the National Police's cyber-crime unit or the anti-terror group, not the ministry.
"If the government is serious about combating terrorism, then all they need to do is improve the performance of the cyber-crime unit of the anti-terror group," he said. Rafendi said he believed that the establishment of the body was being drive by the US "obsession" with combating terrorism.
An official, however, said that the monitoring system would not be all-encompassing. The Communications and Information Ministry spokesman said that the team would not be monitoring online content.
"We are only watching the logs, a small portion of a recorded account, to find any latent threats so we can anticipate things that could destabilize national security," said post and telecommunications directorate representative Gatot S. Dewa Broto. "Moreover, we can't look over everyone's shoulders all the time because of the limited numbers of our personnel. It would be impossible for us to do that," he added.
He said that unlike China and Malaysia, the Indonesian government did not monitor online content written by its citizens.
Several countries already use sophisticated software to watch Internet content, including emails, although critics are unconvinced that it is particularly effective in ending threats to a nation's security.
"Anything that curbs the freedom of expression is problematic," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group on Saturday. "It's not effective trying to curb crimes by this means as there is always a way for crime to exist. Terrorists can always use code language that nobody but themselves would understand," she said.
She added that she had no doubt that the Internet had increasingly become important for militant groups. "Jamaah Islamiyah personnel are highly literate with computers. If they are not, then they will be taught to become good at it," she said. Sidney added that in China, where the government aggressively monitors and screens Internet content, the practice was more harmful to citizens than it was helpful to the government. "It's better for freedom to prevail," she said.