Indonesia detains democracy activist after post to mailing list (fwd)

[Declan McCullagh]

On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Charles Gimon wrote:
> [...]
> > >    Trouble in Paradise
> > >    by Declan McCullagh (declan at well.com)
> > >    Washington, DC, 18 August
> > >    
> > >    Indonesian democracy activists have taken their fight for freedom
> > >    to the Net, and the government doesn't approve.
> > >    
> > >    After distributing email messages about riots in Jakarta last month to
> > >    an international Indonesian-politics mailing list, Prihadi Beny
> > >    Waluyo, a lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian University, was arrested
> > >    and interrogated by the military. Since then, the mailing list has
> > >    been banned from the country and Waluyo has returned to his house,
> > >    where he remains under surveillance.
> > 
> > [dan lain-lain...]
> > 
> > Exactly which mailing list was "banned from the country"? All the
> > Indonesian mailing lists I'm on, including apakabar at clark.net, are
> > functioning normally, with no unusual complaints or interruptions.
> 
> Never mind the details. What's important is that this is yet another example
> of net censorship, like the Berkeley administration's reading student email
> and the FBI's monitoring and disrupting patriot email. 
> 
> It's really sad, the difference between HRW/AI and Wired. You know, Amnesty
> has some outstanding policies regarding accuracy, objectivity, and
> universality. That's why they're accorded such respect. Human Rights Watch,
> which has only been around since the late 70's and committed a few major
> faux pas in Central America, is still learning. Wired decided that it had
> all the answers years ago.


Rich is frothing again. Time to killfile him again. Note he contributes
nothing of substance except a vapid anti-Wired rant that has been done
better elsewhere, like www.howtired.com. (Personally, I don't even read
Wired much anymore. To each his own.)

As for UCB and the FBI threads, Rich is talking about back
fight-censorship discussions. He seems to think that I endorse every
message I forward to a mailing list. He is incorrect. (Rather, I offer the
information to the list, as Judge Sloviter took Olsen's testimony, "for
what it's worth.")

Back to Indonesia -- my column should have said the Indonesian military is
*trying* to ban the mailing list from the country. They haven't succeeded
yet. Time will tell.

I have more information on Indonesia at http://www2.eff.org/~declan/global/ -- 
right now, use the www2 address since not all directories seem to be 
updating on the mirror servers properly right now.

-Declan



// declan at eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan at well.com //