Jerry Norton, Jakarta – Indonesia's expulsion of two foreign experts on the country shows freedom of expression should not be taken for granted in the fledging democracy, a prominent attorney said on Monday.

Todung Mulya Lubis, a leading commercial and human rights lawyer, told reporters the exclusions of Australian academic Edward Aspinall and American scholar and NGO executive Sidney Jones demonstrate: "This is not a time to be complacent."

Jones, praised for her reports on terrorism and other issues in the world's most populous Muslim country, was deported in June from Indonesia, where she was director of the International Crisis Group. Some thought she might be allowed to return after the Indonesian presidency changed hands in October but that has not happened.

Aspinall, a frequent visitor to Indonesia, was sent home this month when he arrived in Jakarta on his way to work for an Australian aid agency in tsunami-hit Aceh province.

In both cases the Indonesian government has defended its right to admit whom it chooses but officials have been murky about precisely what it was Aspinall and Jones were alleged to have done to cause the expulsions.

Lubis, mentioned as a possible attorney-general or justice minister last October when president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was choosing a cabinet, said he was familiar with Aspinall's work and considered him a friend of Indonesia.

He could be critical and outspoken but was not like hardliners who have a close-minded attitude, Lubis said. "This is a bad sign," he said of Aspinall's exclusion. As for Jones, she "has done nothing wrong" and he hoped the government would let her return soon, Lubis said.

He raised broader concerns about sweeping revisions of Indonesia's criminal code in the works which he said could hamper freedom of expression if draft versions become law.

Indonesia still sometimes suffers from "intimidation and terror toward the press," especially from authorities and political parties in regional areas, Lubis also said in a presentation to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club.

Speaking on the same panel with Lubis, Bambang Harymurti, editor-in-chief of Tempo Magazine and Koran Tempo newspaper, said freedom of the press in Indonesia, as measured by Reporters sans Frontieres, had been slipping steadily since 2001.

But, he said: "We might do better this year" because typically a new government – Indonesia changed presidents in late October – has a honeymoon period with the media. Like Lubis, however, he warned of a number of problem areas, including changes for the worse in new laws under consideration.

Harymurti himself is appealing a jail sentence for criminal libel rendered on the basis of statutes critics say are outmoded and should be repealed.

An officer of the foreign correspondents' club said the government had been invited to send a representative to the discussion but declined.