Page 33 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

18 Chapter 1

leadership ( negara pengurus ) but argued such power must be checked by “an article
[ensuring] that every citizen will not be afraid to express an opinion . . . [and guaran-
teeing] the right to assemble, to convene, to write.”
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Supomo and Sukarno ultimately did concede to Article 28, which appeared to pro-
tect free speech through a statement that the freedom “to express thoughts orally and
in writing and so forth shall be determined by legislation.” Yet by granting govern-
ment the power to determine the boundaries of free speech without delineating such
boundaries, Article 28 effectively affirmed the opposite: to comply with the impera-
tives of the constitution, the state will make laws that regulate speech, potentially
circumscribing it. Ironically, through this apparent concession to individual rights,
the framers created a constitutional clause formalizing the state’s authority to abridge
rights, including freedom of speech, and thereby limit society’s ability to check the
abuse of power.

Guided Democracy and a Guided Press
Following four years of armed struggle against the Dutch, Indonesia’s revolution-
aries won formal independence in 1949. They ratifi ed the original 1945 constitution
but soon replaced it with two interim documents that created a more autonomous
parliament and stronger protections for civil rights, including freedom of speech. In
1954, leaders of the new republic demonstrated further commitment to press free-
dom by nullifying a regulation identifi ed with Dutch repression called the Persbre-
idel Ordonnantie, or the Press Muzzling Ordinance, that allowed the government to
ban publications viewed as threats to public order. With this nullification and the

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more liberal interim charters, Indonesia enjoyed a decade of parliamentary democracy

under its first president, Sukarno, marked by competitive multiparty elections and
a print press that was, by most accounts, outspoken and critical of the government.
Yet the new government also retained several other laws giving the state broad
discretion to punish speech. By force of legal continuity, the sections of the crimi-
nal code known as the lèse majesté articles that had protected Dutch colonials from
disrespect survived independence to outlaw any speech that might offend the new
republic’s president, vice president, or other officials. Another Dutch legacy, the
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haatzai artikelen , or “hate-sowing articles,” criminalized spreading animosity in society
or contempt toward the government and remained part of Indonesia’s legal code for
the next half century.
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Thus even in this democratic era, we see the foundations for the later suppres-
sion of speech under Suharto. Tolerance among the nation’s first leaders for Jakarta’s
vociferous print press was also surprisingly brief. By 1953, the Ministry of Infor-
mation was threatening to sanction any media outlet giving a “false picture” of the
nation’s affairs. Soon after, the attorney general ordered the media to refrain from any
reporting on government matters that might be inflammatory or highlight disagree-
ments. In 1956, the army’s chief of staff issued a new, more draconian regulation
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to prohibit virtually all speech critical, degrading, or suspicious of public officials.
Borrowing almost verbatim from the Dutch haatzai artikelen , the new regulation also
outlawed writings that could give rise to “expressions of antagonism, hatred, or con-
tempt” among or toward societal groups, or that contained information able to pro-
duce a public sensation. Although protests soon forced the government to revoke
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this regulation, within a year, the imposition of martial law to suppress revolts in the
outer islands allowed even more severe strictures on news outlets. That same year,