Digital Rights Situation Report Indonesia 2019: The Rise of Digital Authoritarian

Disputes between the 2019 presidential elections become one of the important records of the digital rights situation in Indonesia over the past year. Nevertheless, violation of digital rights in Indonesia also happened because of other reasons, like social environment conflict, especially in the regional area. Citizens are either criminalized or their right to security are violated because of their activity on overseeing public services.

The increasing of criminalization against citizen related to their activities on the Internet in 2019 has become one of the records that continues to repeat from year to year. It is the same in silencing of the critical voices of citizens who express and argue through the Internet, especially social media. Activists and journalists are most of the victims, besides the emergence of new victims, especially academics

The Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) has been paying attention to the issue of digital rights since 2018, five years after the network was founded and initially only advocated for freedom of expression online. In general, these digital rights include the right to access the Internet, the right to express using digital media, and the right to feel secure in digital media.

This report is an attempt to not only record the various violations of digital rights that happened during 2019, but also place them in a bigger context, as of how they impact democracy. As a new terminology, digital rights have not received serious attention, including how these rights are closely related to the more fundamental rights, human rights (HAM).

Aside of being a tool to introduce digital rights issue, we hope this digital rights situation report can be our advocacy in pushing the country to create fulfillment and protection to the digital rights. Happy reading.

The 2019 Indonesian Digital Rights Situation Report can be downloaded at https://s.id/reportsafenet2019