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Awal bulan Juni 2020, Pengadilan Tata Usaha Negara (PTUN) menyatakan Pemerintah Indonesia, dalam hal ini Presiden RI dan Kementerian Komunikasi dan Informasi (Menkominfo), telah melanggar hukum atas tindakan pelambatan (throttling) dan pemblokiran internet di beberapa wilayah di Papua dan Papua Barat pada tahun 2019. Kasus yang terjadi selama kurang lebih satu bulan dari tanggal 19 Agustus hingga 28 September 2019 ini diajukan ke PTUN oleh koalisi kelompok masyarakat sipil yang ada di Asia Tenggara. Kemenangan Tim Pembela Kebebasan Pers atas gugatan pada Menkominfo dan Presiden RI, menjadi contoh baik menyikapi cara pemerintah menerapkan otoritasnya dalam pengelolaan Internet.
Earlier this month, the Jakarta State Administrative Court declared as illegal the internet shutdowns in Papua and West Papua enforced by the Indonesian government in 2019. The case on the month-long shutdown, from August 19 to September 28 last year, was filed by a coalition of civil society groups working in Southeast Asia. The victory of the Press Freedom Defender Team over the lawsuit against the Minister of Communication and Information and the President of the Republic of Indonesia, is a good example of how citizens can respond to government’s unlawful management of public communication infrastructure like the Internet.
Songs in the local language of the Marapu community in East Sumba, Indonesia, have become a bridge for the Marapu community to directly communicate and receive information and relevant health recommendations from the World Health Organisation and national and local governments in a culturally familiar and appropriate context.
The military strategy to fight the AA and other rebel groups in the country can be summarized into cutting off four key areas: recruitment, food, budget, and information. The fourth part, information, means to censor news and media about the Arakan conflicts.
May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day, a day to commemorate the importance of freedom of the press. This year's theme, "journalism without fear or favour", is particularly apt considering the world today, when reporting on the coronavirus has become "the new scapegoat for media censorship".
On the evening of April 22, 2020, researcher Ravio Patra was arrested in Jakarta, Indonesia, not long after an attempt to protect his safety due to a WhatsApp privacy breach. His work has captured the interest of many, notably his most recent critique on the sparse handling of COVID-19 by the Jokowi administration.
The pandemic has impacted how civil society organisations do advocacy work, derailing weeks (or months, in our case) of planning. However, we knew we had to adapt and innovate. Instead of a physical conference, we decided to execute a fully online youth conference for April 4, 2020. And, despite less than a month of planning, we did it.
The internet is a primary source of information on the global COVID-19 pandemic. But Arakan (formally known as Rakhine State) in western Myanmar is now experiencing the longest internet shutdown in the world. The internet blockage has also caused a lack of information and knowledge concerning COVID-19.
EngageMedia and Dr. Jun-E Tan, an independent researcher based in Malaysia, collaborated to produce an annotated bibliography for those who want to deepen their knowledge on AI and the Southeast Asia context.
