Censorship in Indonesia

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.