Jakarta – Indonesia's intelligence agency has named a prominent Australian academic as a potential security threat, in the latest sign of the Megawati government's heightened sensitivity to criticism ahead of the July presidential election.
A confidential report by the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) identifies Murdoch University academic Max Lane, a left-wing political commentator, as a "possible threat to disturb national security".
This comes as Indonesian police consider a clampdown on as many as 20 local and foreign critics, including the respected International Crisis Group, in what could herald a return to Soeharto-style restrictions on free speech.
Mr Lane, a frequent visitor to Indonesia for the past 35 years and a harsh critic of successive governments, now faces the possibility of being barred from entering the country.
He said from his Perth home at the weekend he did not know he had been named in the BIN report, but he hoped to visit Indonesia soon for work reasons and possibly live there one day with his Indonesian-born wife.
He had never encountered problems entering or working in Indonesia, even during the autocratic Soeharto regime, which ended in 1998.
Mr Lane's political commentary is published in the English-language Jakarta Post newspaper and other Indonesian publications.
National police chief Da'i Bachtiar said on Friday that his office was monitoring 20 local and foreign activists who had been identified by BIN as possible security threats.
BIN is led by a hardline former army general, A.M. Hendropriyono, a staunch supporter of President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
The apparent crackdown comes as the campaign period begins for Indonesia's first direct presidential election on July 5. Mrs Megawati is trailing her former security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in the opinion polls.
The other person named as a security threat in the BIN report, Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones, is facing expulsion from Indonesia within days.
Ms Jones, an American who runs the Indonesian office of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group is considered one of the world's leading analysts of the South-East Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.
She has been critical of the Indonesian government's security policies, especially in separatist hotspots such as Aceh and Maluku.
The ICG is headed by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, who is seeking to discuss the case with the Indonesian government.