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"Andreas Harsono is not well known to the public but he is very well known among a small network of human rights activists, dissident scholars, Indonesian journalists, and foreign correspondents. He is often the fixer behind their stories – unacknowledged, unassuming, unselfish. Now he has shown just what a superb chronicler he is in his own right."

Clinton Fernandes of University of New South Wales University

on Andreas Harsono's book Race, Islam and Power

Andreas Harsono meliput dampak dari tsunami 2014 di Aceh. Ombak raksasa tersebut membunuh lebih 100,000 orang dan mengakhiri perang selama tiga dekade antara Gerakan Acheh Merdeka dan Indonesia lewat perjanjian damai Helsinki pada Agustus 2015. ©Hotli Simanjuntak

Media dan Jurnalisme

Saya pernah bekerja sebagai wartawan The Jakarta Post, The Nation (Bangkok), The Star (Kuala Lumpur) dan majalah Pantau (Jakarta). Saya suka menulis soal jurnalisme. Bill Kovach, guru jurnalisme, mendidik saya buat menjadi wartawan ketika belajar di Universitas Harvard.

Buku dan Laporan

Saya menerbitkan dua antologi –Jurnalisme Sastrawi (2005) bersama Budi Setiyono dan “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme (2011)—serta beberapa laporan termasuk Prosecuting Political Aspiration: Indonesia’s Political Prisoners (2010), In Religion’s Name: Abuses Against Religious Minorities in Indonesia (2013) serta "I Wanted to Run Away": Abusive Dress Codes for Women and Girls in Indonesia (2021). Pada 2019, buku Race, Islam and Power terbit.

Hak Asasi Manusia

Sejak 2008, saya bekerja sebagai peneliti buat Human Rights Watch. Ia membuat saya banyak menulis soal diskriminasi terhadap minoritas agama di Indonesia: minoritas dalam Islam termasuk Ahmadiyah dan Syiah; minoritas non-Islam termasuk Protestan, Katholik, Buddha, Hindu dan Khong Hu Chu; minoritas agama kecil maupun agama baru macam Millah Abraham. 

Minoritas gender --termasuk perempuan serta LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer)-- juga sering saya bahas. Saya juga banyak menulis minoritas etnik macam Aceh, Kalimantan, Jawa, Maluku, Timor serta Papua.

Perjalanan

Saya pernah jalan dari Sabang sampai Merauke, dari Miangas sampai Rote, lebih dari 80 lokasi, selama tiga tahun. Saya menulis tempat menarik. Saya juga sering menulis perjalanan di negeri jauh, dari Eropa sampai Amerika, praktis berbagai kota besar di Asia Tenggara. 

Cerita

Pengalaman hidup, dari kegembiraan sampai kesedihan, dari kawan sampai adik. Saya selalu tinggal di Pulau Jawa --Jember, Lawang, Malang, Salatiga, dan Jakarta-- namun pernah bermukim di Phnom Penh dan Cambridge, dekat Boston. Kedua anak saya lahir di Jakarta. Isteri saya, Sapariah Saturi, kelahiran Pontianak, pindah ke Jakarta buat bekerja. Mungkin kawan saya di luar Indonesia, paling banyak di New York sehingga saya sering berkunjung ke New York maupun kota-kota sekitarnya.

Andreas Harsono: Dengan Pembangunan Berkesinambungan, Maja Bisa Menjadi Tempat Tinggal yang Lebih Baik dari Jakarta

Wawancara SekitarMaja.com 

Andreas Harsono adalah seorang wartawan, aktivis, dan peneliti, yang kini bermukim di Maja, Lebak. Sebelumnya ia tinggal selama 30 tahun di Jakarta, dan pernah tinggal di Phnom Penh (Kamboja), Bangkok (Thailand), serta New York (Amerika Serikat). 

Kiprahnya di dunia jurnalistik dimulai sejak tahun 1980-an saat dia meliput dampak negatif ketergantungan sistem transportasi Indonesia pada motorisasi. Selama 3 dekade terakhir ia banyak menulis soal hak asasi manusia. 

Andreas ikut mendirikan Aliansi Jurnalis Independen pada 1994, lantas membangun Institut Studi Arus Informasi dan Yayasan Pantau di Jakarta. Ia menulis soal privatisasi Perusahaan Air Minum Jakarta sejak 1998. Dia turut mengkritik berbagai kebijakan pemerintah Indonesia soal penyedotan air tanah di Jakarta. Dia secara konsisten menulis soal bahaya permukaan tanah Jakarta turun, risiko kemacetan lalu lintas, polusi udara dan suara, serta kekacauan negara Indonesia dalam memberantas korupsi. 

Pada Sabtu 13 Juli 2024, SekitarMaja.com berkesempatan untuk mewawancarai Andreas yang sejak awal 2024 tinggal di rumah barunya di Citra Maja Raya bersama sang istri, Sapariah Saturi, yang juga seorang wartawan dan editor dari Mongabay Indonesia. 

Bersama SekitarMaja.com, Andreas berbicara mengenai alasannya memilih untuk bermukim di Maja, pandangannya soal Kota Mandiri Maja, serta keresahannya mengenai kerusakan lingkungan hidup di daerah Maja dan sekitarnya. 

Berikut petikan wawancara SekitarMaja.com bersama Andreas Harsono.

Andreas Harsono pindah dari Jakarta karena
polusi udara, polusi suara, kemacetan lalu lintas, dan banjir.

Bagaimana Anda memutuskan untuk tinggal di Maja?

Sapariah Saturi, isteri saya, punya kegemaran berkebun. Dia pernah berkebun di puncak apartemen tempat kami tinggal di bilangan Palmerah, Jakarta. Namun, pada Mei 2021 atap apartemen tak bisa lagi jadi kebun. Kami terdorong mencari rumah tapak agar bisa berkebun. 

Daya dorong lain adalah polusi udara, polusi suara, kemacetan lalu lintas, dan banjir di Jakarta. Belum lagi permukaan tanah Kota Jakarta yang turun sekitar 17 centimeter rata-rata tiap tahun. Pada 2050, Senayan dan Palmerah diperkirakan jadi pinggiran pantai bila Pemerintah Indonesia tak ambil tindakan serius buat hentikan pengambilan air tanah. 

Kami sekeluarga –termasuk dua anak– ingin punya tempat dengan lingkungan lebih baik. Saya pribadi ingin tinggal di tempat yang jauh lebih sepi, lebih tenang dari Palmerah. Saya sudah tiga dekade tinggal di bilangan Palmerah. 

Namun, ada juga daya tarik. Kebetulan ada kawan-kawan kami, dari Rangkasbitung, Lebak sampai Tigaraksa, yang mengajak kami membeli rumah di daerah ini. Dari Google Maps, mudah dilihat bahwa daerah sekitar Jakarta yang masih hijau adalah sisi barat di Kabupaten Lebak. Sisi timur (Bekasi), sisi selatan (Depok dan Bogor) bahkan sisi barat terdekat (Tangerang dan Tangerang Selatan) sudah didominasi beton. 

Seorang wartawan yang tahu liputan saya dan tampaknya juga paham dengan pengetahuan saya soal hak akan air dan sanitasi berkata, ‘Mas Andreas beli saja rumah di Maja. Hitung-hitung bisa bantu mengawasi air dan sungai di Lebak.’” 

Apa kelebihan Maja sebagai sebuah kota mandiri? Dan hal apa yang harus ditingkatkan lagi agar Maja bisa menarik lebih banyak orang untuk mau tinggal di sini?

Saya lihat semua perumahan di daerah Maja, kurang-lebih sama dengan real estate lain di Indonesia, misal di Tangerang Selatan, termasuk kawasan Bumi Serpong Damai, Agung Sedayu, Alam Sutera, Metropolitan Land dan lainnya. Tujuan bisnis mereka praktis hanya mencari laba. Ada pemanis yang benar baik, misalnya pembangunan stasiun Cisauk dan Jurangmangu, yang lebih ramah pejalan kaki. 

Di Indonesia, mudah-mudahan saya salah, belum terlihat perusahaan pengembang dengan visi soal perumahan yang ramah lingkungan. Kalau pemerintah Lebak, maupun semua developer besar di Maja, mau membuat daerah ini lebih ramah lingkungan, mereka perlu mengajak warga duduk dan bicara – baik warga setempat maupun para pendatang. 

Maja bisa menjadi tempat tinggal yang lebih baik dari Jakarta, maupun Tangerang Selatan, bila dilakukan “pembangunan berkesinambungan” –meminjam istilah dari Emil Salim, ekonom dan profesor emeritus dari Universitas Indonesia.” 

Cara pandangnya bagaimana?

Pada 1970-an ketika mulai bangun Singapura, Perdana Menteri Lee Kuan Yew mengatakan ada empat indikator kota terbelakang: perumahan kumuh, kemacetan lalu lintas, polusi udara, dan banjir. 

Singapura bangun mulai bangun MRT (kereta api dalam kota) pada 1987. Udara bersih, kebisingan terjaga. Trotoar dibangun dengan permukaan rata. Perumahan kumuh diganti dengan apartemen bersubsidi. 

Bandingkan dengan Bumi Serpong Damai? Banjir ada! Motorisasi kencang! Trotoar minimal. Sering trotoar dibuat dengan undak-undak, permukaan tidak rata, tak ramah pejalan kaki. Tiap ada bangunan, entah rumah atau bisnis, permukaan trotoar naik-turun. 

Trotoar dan MRT adalah indikasi sistem transportasi berkelanjutan. Perumahan kumuh silakan periksa sendiri. Gated community biasanya rapi di dalam, tapi beda sekali di balik tembok. Coba lihat perumahan sekitar stasiun Sudimara. Saya berani bertaruh dengan mengandalkan jalan-jalan lebar, tanpa bangun trotoar dan dorong kereta api, Tangerang Selatan akan macet dalam satu dekade. 

Saya memilih Citra Maja Raya dari Ciputra Group lebih karena saya agak kenal almarhum Ciputra. Saya kenal beberapa kolega Ciputra termasuk Goenawan Mohamad dan Eric Samola. Goenawan pendiri majalah Tempo. Samola berperan dalam membangun Bintaro Jaya, background hukum, bantu menyusun pendekatan hukum dalam pembebasan lahan Bintaro. Saya kenal mereka karena dulu pernah bekerja di Institut Studi Arus Informasi pimpinan Goenawan Mohamad. Ciputra juga suka seni. Naluri saya mengatakan orang dengan kepekaan seni macam Ciputra seharusnya lebih menghargai alam. 

Anda, istri dan suami, memiliki rumah yang direnovasi dengan unik, tak seperti rumah-rumah lain. Bisa jelaskan konsep renovasi rumah Anda secara singkat? Apakah ada tujuan di balik pemilihan konsep tersebut?

Sapariah ingin rumah kecil yang dibelinya di Maja diperbesar, rumah dua lantai, dengan tapak tanah, yang terpaksa ditutup buat bangunan, diganti dengan lahan buat tanaman. Dia minta Yu Sing, arsitek dari Akanoma Bandung, buat merancang desain rumah. Deni Nugraha dari Akanoma juga ikut mengerjakan arsitektur rumah. 

Compok Cellep, dalam bahasa Madura,
artinya rumah yang sejuk. 

Menurut Yu Sing, prinsipnya sederhana. Rumah perlu banyak ventilasi serta lahan buat tanaman. Makin banyak tanaman, makin mudah rumah jadi adem. Hukum alam, udara panas naik dari bawah ke atas. Maka ventilasi diatur agar udara mengalir ke atap rumah. Ia dilengkapi dengan lubang-lubang angin. Lantai rumah dipilih ubin dengan pori-pori lebih besar daripada keramik agar buat rumah adem. Daun pintu dilengkapi dengan jendela. 

Jadinya, rumah 2,5 tingkat, termasuk kebun sayur di atap rumah. Sapariah memberi nama “Compok Cellep” –dari bahasa Madura, artinya “rumah sejuk.” Saya melihat keputusan kami sebagai pengejawantahan prinsip act local think global. 

Kontraktornya, Studio 8 dari daerah Bumi Serpong Damai, berusaha pakai bahan dan supplier lokal, dari kayu sampai kusen, agar memberdayakan sumber lokal dan tak terlalu banyak karbon dipakai buat transportasi. 

Kami sadar daya kami sangat terbatas. Setidaknya, kami ingin bikin rumah dengan kesadaran akan perubahan iklim, akan daya rusak dari perumahan-perumahan raksasa.” 

Bagaimana Anda melihat Maja di masa depan, mungkin 5-10 tahun lagi? Apakah mungkin ia bisa berkembang lebih pesat dibandingkan IKN?

Pada Maret 2024, Presiden Joko Widodo menetapkan dua daerah dekat Maja, sebagai proyek strategis nasional. Namanya lumayan muluk: Kawasan Ekonomi Khusus di Kawasan BSD City (Tangerang Selatan) dan Kawasan PIK 2 Tropical Coastland (Banten). BSD City milik Sinar Mas Group. Pantai Indah Kapuk milik developer Agung Sedayu Group. Beberapa orang mengatakan bahwa memberikan status proyek strategis nasional –dari kemudahan perizinan sampai mekanisme pembiayaan – adalah bentuk balas budi Presiden Jokowi terhadap kedua perusahaan tersebut yang bersedia menanamkan modal di Ibu Kota Nusantara di Pulau Kalimantan.

IKN dibuat karena Presiden Jokowi merasa Jakarta sudah terlalu ruwet buat diselamatkan. Cepat atau lambat, Jakarta, terutama daerah utara akan tenggelam. 

Pusat pemerintah dipindahkan ke Nusantara. Lantas warganya ke mana? 

Tangerang Selatan adalah salah satu pilihan –selain Bekasi dan Bogor. Maka BSD City dicarikan status tersebut. Pantai Indah Kapuk akan tenggelam karena terletak di utara Jakarta. Namun, ia akan diatasi dengan pengurukan sehingga permukaannya jauh lebih tinggi dari utara Jakarta. 

Sejak Februari 2024, ketika pindah ke Maja, kami merasakan keluhan warga Maja, Taman Adiyasa, Tigaraksa, secara luas, soal truk-truk tanah, menggali berbagai lahan di Maja dan Jasinga. Setiap malam bikin macet, membawa tanah ini, antara lain untuk Pantai Indah Kapuk. 

Tanah-tanah ini diambil dari lahan dengan banyak pohon bambu serta tanah kapur. Ini adalah tanaman dan lahan yang banyak simpan air. Saya tak tahu akan bagaimana bentuk Maja dengan laju kerusakan lingkungan yang begitu cepat. 

Lebih penting lagi adalah membangun masyarakat sipil di Lebak, termasuk Maja, agar berbagai perubahan yang cepat, bisa diimbangi dengan masukan dari masyarakat sipil –baik dari penduduk asli maupun para pendatang. Berbagai perubahan atas nama pembangunan ini perlu didokumentasikan, perlu liputan bermutu, perlu komunikasi dengan para pemangku jabatan pemerintah agar keseimbangan lingkungan dan pembangunan bisa dijaga lebih baik.” (*)

The Rocky Road to Press Freedom in South East Asia

By Andreas Harsono

Human Rights Watch

A member of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines protests outside the presidential palace in Metro Manila, Philippines, January 17, 2018. © 2018 Reuters

“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

                                                                                                                                     Albert Camus

JAKARTA – In June 1994, the Indonesian government banned three news weeklies --Detik, Editor and Tempo -- triggering a nationwide protest against the government’s repressive regulations against newspapers. Hundreds of young reporters protested against the closures, demanding that the state-sanctioned Indonesian Journalist Association (Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia) should ask President Soeharto to revoke the ban. Being a politically captured group, the PWI instead issued a news release saying that it “understood” Soeharto’s decision.

More than 100 angry journalists, including some senior journalists and columnists, decided to challenge the repressive state by setting up a new union, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen). I was one of the group who gathered in August 1994, in a villa in Sirnagalih village, outside Jakarta, where we declared that we wanted to promote press freedom and to fight for the welfare of media workers.

We were not naïve. We knew it was an illegal move because at that time the Indonesian government only permitted a single organization for journalists. We knew that the Information Ministry, the police, the military, as well as the Indonesian Journalists Association would act against us. A few months later, many of these signatories, me among them, lost their jobs or were banned from working for any Indonesian media outlet. The authorities even arrested several journalists and sentenced them to prison terms. Others moved away from Indonesia.

But it was the opening of a new chapter, at least for me, and compelled me to learn about the situation state of media freedom in Asia. I learned about the needs to have readers’ representatives or ombudspersons in each newsroom. Journalists should be transparent about their motives and methods in covering and writing their stories. If they make mistakes, they should make the correction and apologize. Like what Albert Camus, the French author wrote, “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

In January 1995, the new union got an invitation to attend a Hong Kong conference to speak about how media had been banned in Indonesia. In Hong Kong, I met many other Asian journalists, including Jimmy Lai, a media mogul of the Apple Daily in Hong Kong.

Pana Janviroj, then chief editor of The Nation daily in Bangkok, also spoke at the conference. He later asked me to join his newspaper. It was just part of a conversation inside a car that the Freedom Forum, the American group which that the conference, had arranged for us to travel from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Wanchai to a fancy dinner with the Foreign Correspondents' Club.

After making his offer, Pana asked, “Is that okay?”

The monthly retainer was almost five times my previous salary, plus I could still work for other newspapers. Of course, I said okay. No application letter. No contract. Just a handshake.

He asked me to fly to Bangkok. He introduced me to some of his editors: Kavi Chongkittavorn, Sonny Inbaraj, Steven Gan, Yindee Lertcharoenchok as well as their television broadcaster Thepchai Yong. I began to file my stories in March 1995, working from Jakarta, and later also from Phnom Penh, Yangon and Kuala Lumpur. I covered all sorts of stories, such as Hun Sen ousting Norodom Ranariddh in Cambodia, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, the Asian economic crisis, as well as the tension in East Timor. Aung Zaw, a Burmese journalist, also joined us from Chiang Mai, writing mostly about the military junta inside Myanmar.

In Jakarta, I got to know the CNN correspondent Maria Ressa, who covered the 1996 riots when the Soeharto government orchestrated a political attack against an opposition party boss, Megawati Soekarnopoetri.

I began to meet many passionate champions of journalism in South East Asia. Sheila Coronel, who helped set up the Philippines Centre for Investigative Journalism, agreed to train Indonesian journalists in Medan, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar in 1997-1998. I also enjoyed the friendship of many Far Eastern Economic Review journalists in Hong Kong.

I then helped establish a number of media rights advocacy groups, including the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information with Goenawan Mohamad, Isaac Santoso, Yosep Adi Prasetyo and others. In Bangkok, Coronel, Chongkittavorn and other journalists set up the South East Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA) in 1997, promoting press freedom in the region.

The Asian economic crisis that started in mid-1997 triggered political instability, and later ethnic and religious violence in Indonesia, and led directly to the fall of the authoritarian President Soeharto in May 1998. Thailand, where the crisis kicked off in July 1997, faced massive economic dislocation that heavily impacted politics and the media. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir, surprisingly, survived the crisis, but ended up putting his deputy Anwar Ibrahim in prison on bogus charges.

The BBC correspondent Jonathan Head broke the news that the new Indonesia president, B.J. Habibie, had agreed, in an interview with him, to hold a referendum in 1999 on the political status of East Timor. But many journalists in Indonesia have borne witness to large-scale sectarian and communal violence in which a total of about 90,000 people have been killed, ranging from sectarian violence in the Moluccas islands to the turmoil in East Timor after the United Nations-organized referendum.

Nascent, independent media faced a lot of challenges because of the Southeast Asian economic crisis, losing advertisement income, cutting their newsroom budgets, and dealing with more complicated political situations, both in their capitals and their many diverse provinces, like Papua in Indonesia, where an independence movement led to a violent crackdown. The media, like many other businesses, were overextended. But my media friends, who were pioneers for media freedom in the region, persisted and ultimately prospered.

Twenty years later

Over these past two decades, those friends went their separate ways. Steven Gan returned to Kuala Lumpur, setting up Malaysiakini. Santoso set up the KBR radio network, sharing his network’s news content with more than 700 radio stations throughout Indonesia. Maria Ressa wrote a book on the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network in South East Asia while staying in Singapore with a fellowship. She later set up Rappler news website in the Philippines, and of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her courage in standing up for press freedom. Aung Zaw moved his Irrawaddy magazine operation from Chiang Mai to Yangon, and then after the Myanmar military’s coup in February 2021, moved it back into exile. In Jakarta, Goenawan Mohamad republished his Tempo magazine. These news organizations produced quality journalism. And my friends became award-winning journalists.

Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her house arrest in Myanmar, prompting U.S. President Barack Obama to visit Yangon in November 2012, praising the reform that was taking place in Myanmar. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won the 2015 election.

But starting in 2012, the older sectarian and racist instincts arose in Myanmar, with anti-Muslim hate speeches spreading especially in Rakhine State, targeting Rohingya and other Muslim minorities. Hate speech on social media stirred attacks against other Muslims in central and northern Myanmar in 2013. This culminated in August 2017 in massive crimes against humanity and acts of genocide by government forces against the Rohingya.

These developments pointed to a new way to share information. In Myanmar, the main platform was and remains Facebook. Changes in the way that people seek and receive information are challenging the Southeast Asia news media too.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media companies now pose a serious challenge to the popularity and the influence of traditional media. These companies have changed how Indonesians, Filipinos, Thais, Cambodians, and others in Southeast Asia and around the world consume information. Many of these consumers are still learning the difference between real news reporting versus propaganda from an interested party, and don’t fully understand the research, fact checking, writing and editorial review processes that distinguishes solid journalism.

The reality is that journalists are no longer gatekeepers of the news. They have lost the role of helping to determine what information and accounts of events should reach the public, and what doesn’t. With the internet and social media, everyone is now their own circulation manager and editor. Indonesia’s Press Council calculated that Indonesia has now 47,000 “media organizations”, mostly “citizen journalist” website only operations, a massive rise from the only 1,000 or so more formal media organizations that existed in 1998.

In Indonesia, social media has helped fan the flames of division. Religious intolerance plagues Indonesia. Minorities including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Ahmadiyah, and Shia Muslims, as well as native faith believers and followers of new religions like Millah Abraham, face discrimination, intimidation, and violence. There is also widespread discrimination against women and LGBT people.

Technology may change but trust – when earned and nurtured – will endure.

In May 2017, a Jakarta court sentenced a former Jakarta governor, Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, a Christian, to two years in prison for blasphemy against Islam. Ahok was accused of defaming Islam during the Jakarta election. More than 150 people have been sent to prison for blasphemy in post-Suharto Indonesia, a huge increase from only 10 cases previously.

Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization based in Paris, France, published the first worldwide press freedom index in October 2002, and over the last two decades, it annually recorded the slow decline of press freedom in South East Asia.

In 2022, the situation became worse in most countries in South East Asia. Myanmar remained the worst among these 11 countries. Newly independent East Timor became the freest, having no criminal defamation law, though, as President Jose Ramos-Horta has repeatedly complained, it is still facing resistance to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In general, the other 10 countries get worse – and in this analysis, we can certainly include the single party dictatorship Laos, which the French organization inexplicably didn’t calculate.

Thailand, which unlike other countries in the region, has never been colonized, dropped from the 66th on the chart in 2002 to the 115th in 2022. It shows that Thailand does not necessarily have a better legal infrastructure than the former European colonies like Malaysia, the Philippines, or Vietnam with a Soviet-style legal system. Thailand still maintains the lese majeste law “to protect” the monarchy, including the king, the queen, the heir and the regent-- from defamation. The penalty is 3 to 15 years in prison for each violation, and those charged invariably spend long periods in pretrial detention.

Ranking of press freedom in South East Asia in 2002 and 2022

Country	Ranking in 2002 of 139 countries	Ranking in 2022 of 180 countries
Timor Leste	-	17
Malaysia	110	113
Thailand	66	115
Indonesia	57	117
Singapore	-	139
Cambodia	71	142
Brunei	111	144
The Philippines	90	147
Vietnam	131	174
Myanmar	137	176

Sources: Reporters Without Borders survey in 2002 and 2022

So why does press freedom, and also democracy, not perform better in economically strong South East Asia?

The Philippines’ ranking has dropped significantly from the 90th in 2002 to the 147th in 2022. Indonesia was once among the best in the world during the rule of President Abdurrahman Wahid, himself a progressive Muslim cleric, with the ranking of the 57th in 2002. Now it is the 117th, among the worst.

Political context and the ‘winner take all’ politics prevalent in the region is obviously a factor. Thailand has had a so-called red shirts versus yellow shirts rivalry since 2006, which includes spates of violence. In 2014, Army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha staged a coup after a decade of this rivalry.

In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party, which has ruled the city-state continuously since its bitter separation from Malaysia in 1965, has a regulatory arsenal that allows the government to directly appoint members of the boards and the editors of the leading media outlets. In Malaysia, the status and activities of the nine Malay monarchies are sacrosanct, extremely sensitive subjects. Any form of commentary or reporting deemed critical of the monarchies can result in prosecution and heavy penalties, leading to self-censorship. Political leaders also use onerous laws and regulations to restrict the press.

The Cambodia democratic transition that started in 1992 with the assistance of the United Nations allowed the emergence of a press that flourished until Prime Minister Hun Sen opened a campaign against independent journalism. Cambodia’s ranking has dropped from the 71 in 2002 to the 142 in 2022.

But coups have proven the most disruptive to the development of a free media. Many countries in the region are familiar with coups. The Myanmar military staged a coup in February 2021, resulting in a broad crackdown against anti-coup protesters that amounted to crimes against humanity, along with massive pressure on journalists.

“When the coup happened, Myanmar’s media industry fell into the darkness,” said an anonymous journalist in the opening of the 20-minute documentary, “Walking Through the Darkness" on how Myanmar journalists fled the cities after the coup and were forced to work in ethnic-controlled areas and in exile in Thailand to keep their news reports coming out.

“Whether the military like us or not, journalism has an important role,” said another Myanmar journalist. “Journalists must be able to do their work.”

Quite clearly, some world leaders were far too optimistic about the path forward for Myanmar, and the durability of democratic rule and a free press in that country when faced with a rights abusing military that believed it was destined to always hold power.

But other countries have shown some progress. Malaysia elected a reformist government for a brief two year period and eventually sent their former prime minister Najib Razak to prison for corruption.

South East Asia, for centuries, has always been a region where global rivalries take place, with bigger power asserting their influence, from Islamic rulers in the Middle East to Chinese kingdoms, from European powers to Indian influence, and now pitting the world’s two largest economies: the United States and China. The South China Sea is a now a hotspot for competition between China and the U.S.

But China scares Hong Kong journalists with its repressive actions. It should not be a surprise that the Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of Hong Kong as the 18th best performing country in 2002 is now down to 148th of 180 countries. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, apparently has not learned that over the long term, press freedom is related to economic development and political stability.

The authorities arrested Jimmy Lai last December, symbolizing the drastic decline of media freedom in Hong Kong. in 2020. This is the man who shook my hand at the 1995 conference, sending his regards to my friends back home who were fighting for media freedom in Indonesia.

Legal frameworks are playing an important part in restricting press freedom in the region. In Indonesia, harassment, discrimination, and violence directed at religious minorities are facilitated by a legal architecture, introduced in 2006, that purports to maintain “religious harmony.” In practice, it undermines religious freedom. As in Myanmar, some Indonesian journalists find it difficult to separate their religions and their profession.

In Vietnam, the Communist Party maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association, and religion, are restricted. Rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault, and imprisonment. The Vietnam state controls all media outlets. The Communist Party demands that they serve as “the voice of party organisations, state organs and social organisations”. The party’s central propaganda department meets weekly in Hanoi to ensure that nothing objectionable is published in media outlets. Party-controlled courts have convicted and sentenced many independent journalists to prison, including Pham Doan Trang, Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and others.

Similarly, in communist-controlled Laos, it is absolutely impossible to operate an independent news outlet, and the authorities crack down harshly on groups, organizations or individuals who dare criticize the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, or the government. Migrant workers who criticized the Lao government while they were working in Thailand were subsequently arrested and sentenced to between 15-20 years when they returned to Laos.

In Singapore, two large media groups own all of the major print, radio and broadcast media. MediaCorp is owned by a state investment company. The other, Singapore Press Holdings, is supposed to be privately owned but its directors are appointed by the government. We’re now seeing the New Naratif, an alternative outlet, emerging from Singapore but it is already facing harassment. Meanwhile, The Online Citizen, which played a critical role in independent media in Singapore, has been shut down through harassing lawsuits and regulatory interference, moving their legal entity in Taiwan.

In Manila, President Rodrigo Duterte stripped the ABS-CBN network, the second largest television network in the Philippines, of its franchise in 2020. Luckily, it continues to broadcast online. Multiple harassing legal cases against Maria Ressa and her colleagues at Rappler apparently aim to ultimately shut down the news site. There are no signs so far that things will get better under the new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator.

Sociocultural context poses many handicaps. In Malaysia, Malay-language media outlets, which are read by the majority of the population, are sometimes subject to more censorship than their counterparts in English, Chinese or Tamil. In Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, Islam-related issues such as conversion, mandatory hijab, child marriages and apostasy were taboo until recently. However, Indonesian media are increasingly active in covering sexual violence and other crimes in Islamic boarding schools.

Sadly, many Indonesian media outlets also provide too much leeway by failing to regularly report on how local jurisdictions abridge rights. Indonesia has more than 700 regulations and local ordinances, made in the name of Sharia, or Islamic law, that include regulations discriminating against non-Muslim minorities to making mandatory hijab rules.

What Indonesian journalists should use as their guiding reference is the 1945 Constitution, which explicitly guarantees religious freedom and the rights of assembly, association, and expression of opinion. Indonesia, and other countries in the region, should get rid of criminal defamation laws, learning from East Timor.

More countries in South East Asia, should, like Indonesia, ratify core international conventions on human rights. These provide even stronger standards that journalists should follow in pursuing the functional truth in their reporting rather than kowtowing to their countries’ toxic defamation laws.

I understand very well, after working in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh and Jakarta, that South East Asia is a complicated region that is very diverse linguistically, racially, culturally and historically. It has Muslim-majority countries like Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It also has Buddhist-majority countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand. The Philippines and East Timor are predominantly Christian countries. Then there are communist countries like Laos and Vietnam. Unlike Africa and Latin America, this region traditionally has had no colonial languages that these countries could use to communicate with each other.

In December 2021, I was very proud when Maria Ressa got the Novel Peace Prize in Oslo, along with the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov.

These two veteran journalists are not naïve, understanding very well that the prize will not change the situations in their countries. Muratov closed down his Novaya Gazeta newspaper after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ressa is still facing the legal problems from cases that President Duterte and his government manufactured against her.

When receiving the prize, Maria Ressa said in her speech in Oslo that, “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems of our times: climate, coronavirus, now, the battle for truth.”

Ressa called for greater support for independent journalism, for protection of journalists, and to hold accountable those states that target journalists.

In Bahasa Indonesia, we like to say, “Makin bermutu jurnalisme, makin bermutu masyarakat. Makin tidak bermutu jurnalisme, makin tidak bermutu masyarakat.” The more qualified the journalism, the better the quality of the society that it serves. On the other hand, the lower the quality of journalism, the lower the quality of that society.

It is a very clear message indeed. Monarchies, clerics, ethnic leaders, government officials, and the people in South East Asia should understand that message. It’s been two decades, and those messages in support of media freedom are becoming clearer and clearer. South East Asia should promote press freedom and get rid of toxic criminal defamation laws.

It is the only way forward.

Andreas Harsono works for Human Rights Watch in Jakarta. He helped found the Jakarta-based Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1994, and in 2003 he helped create the Pantau Foundation, a journalist training organization also in Jakarta. He presented this paper at the 34th Deutscher Orientalistentag held at Free University Berlin on September 15, 2022.

It will published under the title "Pioniere der Pressefreiheit. Wie ich vom Reporter zum Medienaktivisten wurde" in the (bi-annual) edition Le Monde diplomatique No 33: "Süd.Ost.Asien - Putsche, Palmen, People Power (South East Asia - Coups, Palmtrees, People Power), edited by Sven Hansen and Dorothee d'Aprile for the German edition of Le Monde diplomatique, Berlin May 2023.

Ketika keperluan material terasa sudah terpenuhi

SAYA pergi ke Plasa Senayan, dekat rumah, guna mengambil sesuatu dari sebuah toko dimana saya pesan hadiah buat isteri. Ternyata pesanan belum jadi. Mereka kekurangan karyawan. Mesin juga ada kerusakan. Saya kecewa tapi bisa mengerti dengan kesulitan tersebut. Saya putuskan cari barang lain. 

Pandemi memang bikin banyak sekali perusahaan, entah berapa ribu di seluruh Jakarta, besar, menengah dan kecil, mengurangi karyawan atau biaya pemeliharaan alat. Ada tailor kenamaan terpaksa rumahkan penjahit mereka. Ada belasan toko di Plasa Senayan --mungkin bangunan mall dengan harga sewa per meter persegi paling mahal di Indonesia, menurut Erfi Daniel, manajer Coffee Club di mall ini-- terpaksa tutup. 

Sambil jalan-jalan dalam mall, saya jadi berpikir memanjakan diri sendiri dengan beli sesuatu. Atau makan sesuatu? Hampir 90 menit saya jalan-jalan, lihat berbagai toko dan tempat makan, ternyata tak ada satu pun yang menarik perhatian saya. 

Entah kenapa, saya merasa berkecukupan. 

Saya merasa ingin makan di rumah saja. Lebih sehat dan hemat. Bukan berarti saya punya uang buat membeli arloji bermutu atau lukisan indah tapi kalau pun ada uang, saya merasa cukup menikmati lukisan-lukisan indah di museum. 

Saya tahu arloji dari Swiss jauh lebih bermutu daripada arloji Seiko dengan army strap yang sudah saya pakai lebih dari dua dekade. Rasanya Seiko juga baik. Kadang memang terlambat tapi tinggal putar sret ... sret ... sret ... sudah tepat lagi. 

Arloji Seiko ini baru beberapa tahun saya pakai buat mengganti arloji sejenis, yang saya beli di Singapura pada 1996 ketika saya bekerja sebagai koresponden buat harian The Nation (Bangkok). Tukang arloji Seiko menganjurkan saya ganti baru karena arloji lama terlalu sering service. 

Ada pameran lukisan dan patung di Plasa Senayan. Saya menikmati lukisan artis Belanda Johan Rudolf Bonnet (1895-1978). Ia gambar seorang lelaki Bali. Saya amati berkali-kali. Harganya Rp 900 juta. Kalau dibeli ia bisa jadi investasi yang menguntungkan. Saya tentu tak sanggup membeli lukisan semahal ini. 

Tapi buat apa juga? Saya merasa isteri dan kedua anak saya juga berkecukupan buat hidup layak, dari makan sampai pendidikan. Saya hanya perlu hidup sehat dengan mengurangi berat badan, makan lebih sehat, olahraga teratur. 

Ketika muda, saya pernah berpikir macam Soe Hok Gie (1942-1969), seorang cendekiawan publik dari Jakarta, yang menulis dalam buku hariannya bahwa orang yang mati muda seyogyanya lebih bahagia daripada mereka yang mati tua. Saya bukan tak punya gaya hidup tanpa resiko. 

Sebagai seorang aktivis sejak 1980an, saya sadar bahwa resiko jadi korban kekerasan cukup tinggi, dari badan cacat sampai kehilangan nyawa. Saya juga biasa hidup sederhana --kecuali beli buku mungkin. Hok Gie sendiri meninggal di puncak Gunung Semeru. Dia keracunan gas ketika menemani seorang kawan pendaki gunung yang terluka. 

Kini tanpa terasa saya hampir umur 60 tahun. Mungkin wajar pada orang yang mulai berumur merasa berkecukupan. Mau ngopi bisa dengan mudah ke Starbucks. Mau belanja keperluan sehari-hari juga tidak repot. Mau liburan, perlu sedikit menabung, tapi bisa terpenuhi. Saya bahkan sering menerima hadiah. Entah dari organisasi dimana saya diminta ceramah. Entah dari relasi ketika hari raya. Mulai dari batik sampai kerajinan logam. Isteri dan anak-anak juga sering kasih hadiah. 

Masa pandemi ini juga banyak kawan saya memerlukan bantuan, dari jaga kesehatan diri sendiri atau keluarga sampai melanjutkan pendidikan. Ada yang harus operasi. Ada yang harus bayar kuliah. Ada yang kehabisan modal. Ini belum lagi mereka yang ditangkap polisi karena demonstrasi. Atau melahirkan ketika pasangannya ada dalam penjara. 

Saya banyak memberikan perhatian kepada tahanan politik dalam beberapa dekade ini. Mereka dipenjara karena menyatakan pendapat tanpa kekerasan. Saya berusaha menolong mereka bersama kawan-kawan lain, sebisa-bisanya. Ini juga membuat saya merasa bersalah bila membeli keperluan tersier --bukan primer maupun sekunder. Mereka lebih memerlukan daripada saya. Selalu usaha meluangkan sedikit uang saya, yang juga tak banyak, buat meringankan beban mereka. 

Ini belum lagi dua orang adik kandung saya, punya kondisi kejiwaan. Mereka masih ditopang, secara finansial, oleh orangtua, selama dua dekade ini. Namun saya selalu ingat akan mereka. Bolak-balik harus berobat, kadang masuk rumah sakit. Mereka memerlukan biaya --setidaknya buat transportasi dan makanan ekstra. Keduanya beruntung punya asuransi kesehatan dari negara Indonesia.

Bisa membantu kerabat dan kawan membuat saya merasa lebih manusiawi. Tidak lebih, tidak kurang. 

Mungkin saya terpengaruh Soe Hok Djin atau Arief Budiman (1941-2020), kakak Hok Gie, yang mengajar saya di Salatiga pada 1980an. Arief hidup nyaman, cukup namun selalu berusaha etis, tak berlebihan. Pakaian sederhana. Vespa, sepeda pancal dan mobil tua. Rumahnya kebanyakan terbuat dari bambu dan kayu, tanpa pagar, serba terbuka. Disain dari arsitek kenamaan Y.B. Mangunwijaya. Arief juga suka membantu orang. Arief menulis memo buat orang yang perlu rekomendasi. Dia juga ikut rekomendasi agar saya dapat beasiswa di Universitas Harvard. Dia mendidik orang dengan memberi contoh. Dia hidup secukupnya. 

Salah satu orang asing yang menarik perhatian saya beberapa tahun terakhir adalah Marie Kondo, seorang perempuan yang dijuluki the tidiest woman in the world. Dia seorang penulis Jepang, yang berpengaruh di dunia karena metodenya merapikan rumah. Netflix siarkan berbagai macam program dengan Marie Kondo. Dia juga muncul dalam acara The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Ini sebuah acara televisi yang terkenal di New York. Marie Kondo bilang setiap benda yang kita miliki perlu disentuh dan ditanya apakah ia "spark joy" (memicu kesenangan). Marie Kondo membuat saya berpikir untuk tak memiliki terlalu banyak barang. 

Entahlah. Saya memutuskan pulang ke rumah, tanpa membeli apapun, sesudah dapat hadiah pengganti buat isteri. Tidak ngopi, tidak ngemil. Saya merasa lebih baik hidup dengan lebih sederhana. Sound spiritual? Saya tak bicara soal surga dan neraka lho. 

Ia setidaknya lebih sehat buat badan dan jiwa saya. Marie Kondo mengingatkan bahwa gaya hidup secukupnya juga lebih baik buat lingkungan hidup. 

Dalam mobil, sambil dengar musik Genesis, saya tiba-tiba merasa terbebas dari keperluan material. 

Carmel Budiardjo: A Lifetime Campaigning for Everyone in Indonesia

Andreas Harsono

Multatuli Project

In August 2005, I visited Carmel Budiardjo, then an 80-year-old human rights campaigner, in her London townhouse. We talked on the second floor, which was also the office for Tapol, the human rights organization that she helped set up in 1973 (in Indonesian, the word “tapol” stands for tahanan politik – political prisoner).

In the 1970s, Tapol led a global campaign to release the approximately 30,000 political prisoners held by the then-dictator, Soeharto. It prompted US President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to call for the prisoners’ release. Soeharto released almost all of them, keeping several dozen jailed in Jakarta. Tapol later became a leading voice on rights issues in Indonesia, particularly in the troubled areas of Aceh, East Timor and West Papua.

Carmel, who passed away in London on July 10 at 96, is among the very few people whose work in the region has been recognized in both conservative Muslim areas, like Aceh, and predominantly Christian areas, like East Timor and West Papua. Her efforts to release and then help political prisoners were immeasurable. In 1995, she received the Right Livelihood Award in Sweden. In August 2009, East Timorese President José Ramos-Horta, who had helped campaign for East Timor’s independence from Indonesia, presented her with the Order of Timor Leste. She also received awards from independent groups in Aceh and West Papua. She is probably the only person to receive such wide recognition from so many diverse groups in this archipelago.

In 2005, she and I talked about why many people living in Java, Indonesia’s most populous island and home to the capital, were oblivious to the disparities between Java, as Indonesia’s “core”, and the “outer islands” (which the Dutch colonists called the Buitengewesten, or Outer Territories). 

“It also applied to me when I lived in Jakarta in the 1950s,” she told me. 

“Only when I left Indonesia in 1971, I began to understand the problem. I was caught up by the concept of the liberation of West Papua in the 1960s. I had to be outside Indonesia to begin to think about the reality of Indonesia. West Papua is not necessarily a legitimate part of Indonesia.”

Carmel also spoke about the underlying causes of human rights abuses in Indonesia. The notions of a nation-state and a sense of equal citizenship are very thin in Indonesia. Many dominant identities, whether as Muslims or ethnic Javanese, are often used to discriminate against and repress minorities, which frequently led to violence. 

“I am not an advocate of breaking apart Indonesia,” she told me. 

“But in West Papua and Aceh, there are strong feelings of injustice and their own nationalisms. West Papua was an international issue. The Act of Free Choice in 1969 was an absolute fraud.”

Carmel was born in London in 1925, between the two world wars, into a Jewish family, whose anti-fascist views influenced her left-wing politics. In 1947, she met Suwondo Budiardjo, a young Indonesian official, in Prague. They married and moved to Jakarta in 1952. She worked as a translator and later wrote economic analyses and speeches for both President Sukarno and the Indonesian Communist Party. When General Soeharto toppled Sukarno in 1965, her husband was jailed for “political offenses” and spent 12 years in prison without trial. Carmel herself spent three years in detention, also without trial, before her deportation in 1971. She wrote about these years in her heartbreaking memoir, Surviving Indonesia’s Gulag.

When she returned to London, her townhouse became a gathering place for activists from all backgrounds. Over Chinese food, she told me about the need for raising awareness about nation building and the stories of political prisoners, as well as about her hopes for Timor Leste, a new nation that ended Indonesia’s occupation and had no political prisoners.

Though much time passed since we last spoke, all of our conversations are still relevant to the challenges Indonesians and others face today. Carmel was a towering figure. As James Ross, a longtime Human Rights Watch colleague, wrote after hearing of her passing, “If there were a human rights movement Hall of Fame, Carmel would have been one of the first inductees.”

Andreas Harsono works for Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia (2019), in which excerpts of his interview with Carmel Budiardjo were first published.

Human Rights Abuses in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Andreas Harsono

Menschenrechte in Indonesien und Timor-Leste 2020

Watch Indonesia!

In July 1997, when the Asian economic crisis began to hit Indonesia, as a journalist, I also began to travel to many parts of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populated country, covering the disappearance of staple foods from markets and suppression of uprisings.

In May 1998, President Suharto stepped down after 33 years in power. But the violence became bigger with many ethnic and religious groups trying to seize more political power and economic benefit from Java Island -- Indonesia’s most important island where both Suharto and his predecessor Sukarno had centralized governance since the 1950s.

On Sumatra Island, Aceh freedom fighters openly organized their ceremonies with AK-47s, having deadly clashes with the Indonesian military. On Kalimantan Island, at least 6,500 ethnic Madurese minorities were massacred as rival ethnic Dayak and Malay militants flaunted their muscles, demanding more say in governing the natural resource-rich island. On Sulawesi Island, the tension broke off around Lake Poso in which 600 people were killed in the Muslim-versus-Christian violence. 

East Timor was burned after Indonesia lost in the August 1999 referendum, opening the gate of history, and making the tiny nation a new sovereign state. In Papua and West Papua provinces, state repression against indigenous people simply continued with new forest concessions and mining operations. 

The biggest violence, however, took place in the Moluccas Islands where Christian militias battling Muslim jihadists, involving a large Salafi group that sent more than 5,000 fighters from Java. Several Afghanistan war veterans, including Al Qaeda’s operators, also went to the Moluccas Islands. It killed at least 25,000 people between 1999 and 2005. At least, 90,000 people were killed in that violent period in Indonesia.

In Jakarta, student protesters demanded, “Reformasi.” It was the most difficult battle cry.

Alas, the world did not know about the Indonesian violence.

Al Qaeda launched the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, triggering the United States-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Arab Spring and war in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East sucked up the international media’s attention.

It reminded me how the Vietnam War had also overshadowed the 1965-69 massacres that took place against communists in Indonesia, killing around 1 million people and outlawing then the third largest communist party in the world (after China and the Soviet Union).

General Suharto rose to power after those mass killings – the biggest one in the history of Indonesia. Post-Suharto presidents did little to address those gross human rights violations, nurturing the culture of impunity and violence. It should not shock any observer when mass violence also took place after Suharto’s departure. 

But President B.J. Habibie allowed a U.N. referendum in East Timor in 1999. President Abdurrahman Wahid revoked the ban on Chinese language, Chinese characters, and Confucianism. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed to a European Union-sponsored peace negotiation on Aceh in 2005.

In 2004, the Indonesian parliament passed the local governance law, decentralizing much of the central authorities to the provinces and regencies. The law says that six sectors will remain the domain of the central government: foreign affairs; defense; policing; judiciary; fiscal, monetary; and religious affairs. But responsibility for everything else, from handing over forest concessions to managing education, was handed over to provincial authorities.

The idea to establish Islamic sharia – something that had been debated since 1945-- emerged again via that law, prompting Muslim politicians in predominantly Muslim provinces to write ordinances that meet “Islamic values.”

Yudhoyono, who ruled between 2004 and 2014, accommodated those demands, ignoring the religious affairs restrictions in the autonomy law. His administration strengthened the blasphemy law office, within the Attorney General Office, prosecuting and jailing 125 individuals for blasphemy in a decade --a steep rise from only 10 cases in the four decades after Sukarno wrote the 1965 blasphemy law.

The blasphemy law recognizes only six religions in Indonesia: Islam; Protestantism; Catholicism; Hinduism; Buddhism; Confucianism. Under the Yudhoyono administration, it was also expanded to discriminate against smaller non-Islam Sunni minorities such as Ahmadiyah and Shia. In 2016, a derivative of the blasphemy law was used to force the violent eviction of more than 7,000 members of the Gafatar religious community from their farm houses on Kalimantan Island.

The blasphemy law became a political weapon to mobilize Muslims, including against Jakarta Governor Basuki Purnama, himself a Christian, in the 2017 local election in which 500,000 Muslim protesters demanded the government to prosecute Purnama. He lost the election and ended up in prison for two years.

In 2006, the Yudhoyono administration also introduced the “religious harmony” regulation, replacing the constitutional principle of “religious freedom.” The principle of “religious harmony” is that the majority has the veto power over the minorities. His administration set up “Religious Harmony Forums” in every province, city, and regency, as “advisory bodies” to approve new houses of worship and other religious matters. The composition of the forums should be proportional with the compositions of the six religions, which in practice entrenches discrimination against minorities. It prompted the closure of more than 1,000 churches in a decade across Indonesia.

Yudhoyono’s  administration tolerated local politicians writing discriminatory regulations against women and girls. In 2016, Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) identified more than 400 discriminatory national and local regulations that harm women, including forcing women and girls to wear the hijab in government buildings, schools, or other public places. They also included curfews, sex segregated sitting areas, and other restrictions against women and girls. The hijab regulations mandate that women and girls wear hijabs, prohibiting them from wearing close-fitting clothing, and requiring them to cover their bodies except their hands, feet, and face.

Some provinces and regencies have introduced local rules that force even non-Muslim girls to wear hijabs, such as West Sumatra and Aceh on Sumatra, and Yogyakarta and Banyuwangi on Java. Some politicians argued that non-Muslim schoolgirls should “adapt” to the Muslim majority. On Lombok Island, a regent even asked female Muslim civil servants to wear the niqab –a full veil that covers the face but their eyes—as well as long dresses that do not reveal the shapes of their bodies.

Gross human rights violations that took place since President Sukarno declared independence in 1945, including the 1965-69 massacres, as well as ethnic and religious violence after the fall of President Suharto, have not been addressed. President Yudhoyono also avoided a U.N. investigation on abuses in East Timor, having only rudimentary trials against some local officials but not touching Indonesian military and police generals involved in the looting and killings there.

When Joko “Jokowi” Widodo won the presidential election in 2014, he promised to find “missing people,” including the famous poet-cum-dissident Wiji Thukul, and to promote religious tolerance. His administration organized a 2015 symposium on the 1965-69 massacres and released Papuan and Moluccan political prisoners, but he stopped there. He did nothing to revoke discriminatory regulations against women and girls or religious minorities. His administration soon arrested Papua and Moluccan activists again, continuing decades of arbitrary detention of political prisoners. Jokowi also tolerated the rise of discriminatory regulations against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) individuals.

Jokowi and his Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan, PDIP) chose to use “Pancasila” to promote religious tolerance.

Pancasila was a political compromise made during the declaration of independence in 1945. Pancasila, which is about five principles for Indonesia, was included in the opening of the Constitution. The prepared text began with the first principle that the Republic of Indonesia is based on “the belief in the One and Only God, with the obligation to abide by Islamic law for adherents of Islam.”

On August 17, 1945, delegates from East Indonesia, which included Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali, and the Moluccas Islands, successfully argued that the sharia phrase be removed or else they “won’t join Indonesia.” Other Muslim leaders compromised with Pancasila becoming only “Belief in One God.”

But the Sukarno and Suharto regimes used the notion of Pancasila to justify the elimination of their opponents. Suharto used Pancasila to legitimize the mass killings. One of the biggest militias in Indonesia uses Pancasila in its name. It is not a surprise that some Muslim organizations oppose the PDIP’s move to introduce a Pancasila indoctrination law. It is obviously not the answer to eliminate discriminatory regulations and to protect human rights.

Post-Suharto electoral democracy helped reduce ethnic and religious violence but civil liberties, press freedom, women’s rights, children’s rights, religious freedom, and the rights of the minorities, are in decline.

Some popular movements have emerged such as the #ReformasiDikorupsi hashtag (reformasi has been corrupted). In 2019, hundreds of thousands of students, indigenous peoples, and minorities protested when the parliament tried to pass a new Criminal Code with more discriminatory articles that would violate rights. Some Indonesian students began to challenge racism against dark skinned Papuans like the #BlackLivesMatter in the U.S, organizing unprecedented protests against the criminalization of Papuan students and activists.

Indonesian leaders need to learn from the failures of the last seven decades in not addressing past human rights abuses and prevent these historical burdens from being passed down to future generations.

Andreas Harsono works for Human Rights Watch, based in Jakarta, recently published his book Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia.