Censorship in Indonesia has varied since the country declared its independence in 1945. For most of its history the government of Indonesia has not fully allowed free speech and has censored Western movies, books, films, and music as well. However, partly due to the weakness of the state and cultural factors, it has never been a country with full censorship where no critical voices were able to be printed or voiced.
Indonesia inherited a number of strict press censorship laws from their former Dutch rulers which remained on the books until the 1950s. These included potential criminal charges for journalists who disturbed the peace or defamed government officials. During the early independence years and the Liberal democracy period in Indonesia there was a relative lack of censorship; it was only in the second half of the 1950s, during the transition to Guided Democracy in Indonesia, that journalists began to be imprisoned again and editorial policies were forced to be integrated with the interests of the state. That policy of integration and repression continued into the New Order period which lasted from 1966 to 1998; during that era the total number of news publications were severely limited and could have their licenses pulled for printing materials the government did not like. During that period films and books were also heavily censored, with novelists and journalists imprisoned in internment camps. After 1998 and the fall of the New Order, Indonesia has seen a period of liberalization of the press, publishing and filmmaking, although there have still been local efforts to censor some materials.
Background Dutch East Indies and Japanese occupation
Before the Twentieth century, censorship in the Dutch East Indies was mostly focused on the European-language press and books and ensuring that trade or military facts did not fall into the hands of enemy nations, or in protecting the reputation of government officials. Printed matter had to be inspected by censors before they could be distributed, and presses were often permanently closed by the state, or their publishers were subjected to endless court cases. It was only in the 1910s, with the rise of Indonesian nationalism, that Dutch authorities began to focus on the colony's growing vernacular press, which was printed mainly in Malay but also in Javanese, Chinese, and other languages. In 1914 it passed the so-called "Hate-sowing articles" () which attached criminal consequences to any speech which was deemed to disturb the peace between races; this often included criticism of colonial officials or European rule. The "hate-sowing articles" were often used as the legal pretext to punish native journalists who printed articles critical of wartime policy or political repression.
In the 1930s, censorship and political repression, especially of Indonesians, escalated to the point of operating essentially as a police state, with regular intimidation, extralegal detention, and exile of journalists and intellectuals. A new Press Curbing Ordinance () was passed in 1931 which gave the Governor General extreme powers to detain, blacklist, censor or imprison editors. In the five years after it was passed, around 27 Indonesian nationalist newspapers were shut down, as well as 5 Dutch ones; whereas previous regulations had targeted journalists, these new ones allowed for the shuttering of publications as well.
During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies which began in 1942, a new kind of strict censorship was enacted by the Kenpeitai and civilian police. The European press was completely closed down, and other press was spied on and subject to controls, but the Indonesian nationalist press and politicians were given some room to publish and make speeches. European editors and journalists at ethnically mixed publications were fired, and Indonesians promoted; the Indonesian language replaced Dutch almost immediately across the entire sector. The teaching of European history was banned. Indonesians were also mobilized or forced to support the Japanese effort and many artists and intellectuals were recruited to create propaganda or art that met strict constraints. Films were also censored, including pre-approval of scripts before production.
War for independence (1945–49) After the Japanese withdrawal, the former territory of the Dutch East Indies was divided between the Dutch and the Indonesian nationalists during the period known as the Indonesian National Revolution. During this wartime situation, the developing Indonesian state did not have the ability or desire to censor systematically, and they were very aware that Indonesians were experiencing free expression after several years of Japanese repression. The 1945 Constitution of Indonesia guaranteed freedom of expression and assembly, but theoretically the colonial-era censorship laws were still in force. The republic established the Ministry of Information and a government radio station Radio Republik Indonesia in September 1945; that same month in Yogyakarta they established a Censorship Agency limited to the city itself which aspired to control inflammatory broadcasts and publications. Meanwhile, the Dutch side (the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration) also stated their support for freedom of the press and that they did not want to return to the strict censorship of the 1930s. But during the military occupation in Dutch zones, which included the capital Jakarta, Indonesian journalists and publications were often persecuted and forced to censor their reports, especially on military actions. Some pro-republic journalists fled to rural areas with their presses rather than continue to operate on the Dutch side. Nonetheless, the pro-republican newspapers remained the dominant force even in Dutch-held areas.
The republican government also published (Indonesian Republic News) and encouraged its officially-sanctioned contents to be quoted and reprinted in private newspapers, and hired celebrity journalists such as Parada Harahap to build public trust in their official publications.
Liberal democracy era (1950–59) Following the departure of the Dutch from most of Indonesia after the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference, the Indonesian Republic began a period of Liberal democracy which initially had few forms of official censorship. The rapid turnover in governments during this period, and the general weakness of the new state also made a coherent policy of censorship impossible. There was also a general desire to avoid applying the Dutch legal regulations, which had been used aggressively against the Indonesian nationalists before the war, against the population. Nonetheless, they were occasionally applied, as in 1953 when incendiary political speeches were banned from publication under the old regulations. In August 1951 many journalists, trade unionists and left-wing politicians were also arrested without charge by the Soekiman Cabinet, although this relied on emergency powers and not censorship laws. It was only in 1954 that the 1930s press regulations were actually repealed, and were replaced by new regulations in the 1955 Penal Code which nonetheless drew heavily on their predecessors. For example, ambiguous regulations allowed journalists to be held responsible by local authorities for printing inaccurate facts which could cause public disorder. Another issue was the granting or withholding of resources and support to newspapers depending on their political loyalty; troublesome newspapers were often denied access to bank loans or printing paper. Dutch-language newspapers, of which a handful remained in the early independence era, also suffered unofficial forms of persecution and declined gradually in the first half of the 1950s.
In 1956 a new period of repression of the press and political repression began. In the fall of that year, the military issued a decree forbidding criticism of any official, or for printing anything which may confuse or agitate the population. The effect of these regulations was similar to the "Hate-sowing articles" of the late colonial era. Dutch schoolteachers began to be fired in 1956 as well. The situation for the press deteriorated in 1957 after Martial Law was declared, making it one of the worst years for censorship of the entire Sukarno era. In March 1957 the army was given expanded rights to ban newspapers and to imprison journalists or political activists. Local military commanders used this new authority very aggressively and arbitrarily; the army commander in Jakarta temporarily closed almost all of the city's daily papers in September, including Harian Rakjat, Pedoman and Bintang Timur; only four newspapers were excluded. The Dutch-language press, which had already dwindled in importance, was a major target as punishment over the West New Guinea dispute; editors were replaced or fired by government decree, some Dutch journalists who had been military veterans were deported, and editors were arrested by military police. Finally on 1 December 1957 a decree was issued completely banning Dutch-language publications; this affected all the remaining major dailies, including Dutch-owned papers like De Java-bode in Jakarta and De Preangerbode in Bandung, as well as Indonesian-owned papers De Nieuwsgier in Jakarta and De Vrije Pers in Surabaya. Because the law also affected other "foreign" languages, Chinese and English-language publications now needed a special license to publish.
Guided Democracy era (1959–66)
By the late 1950s, with the advent of a more centralized and undemocratic political system termed Guided Democracy, this new era of stricter censorship was enshrined in the political system. Despite this, Indonesia continued to have a vibrant press culture with dozens of newspapers and magazines representing a wide spectrum of viewpoints. In 1959 a Press-Military Contact Bureau was established with the goal of ensuring conformity among editors; and a 1960 presidential regulation banned criticism of the government without a license. Overly critical publications had their circulation or number of pages limited by decree, even if they were allowed to continue operating. The two largest opposition political parties, Masyumi Party and the Communist Party, were initially large enough to maintain their influence and even expand it; although the communist daily Harian Rakjat was regularly persecuted by military authorities and had dozens of issues pulled by censors in 1960, other communist publications rose in readership during the same period. Smaller parties such as the Socialist Party of Indonesia and affiliated newspapers such as Keng Po, Star Weekly and Indonesia Raya were hit hardest by the wave of repression; when Masyumi was banned in 1960 its publications also suffered. Other newspapers, such as Abadi and Pedoman, refused to comply with the new system of political control over the press and were shut down; others simply closed of their own accord. Books were also censored; the leftist novelist and historian Pramoedya Ananta Toer's 1960 book (overseas Chinese in Indonesia), which defended the Indonesian Chinese and criticized government discrimination at the height of an anti-Chinese campaign, was banned and he himself was imprisoned without charge for nine months by military authorities. Other academic works were also pressured and censored, as historians and journalists were expected to portray history in a way that matched the official ideology.