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Digital violence threatens free speech: Komnas HAM
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An illustration of restricting freedom of speech. (Shutterstock/siam.pukkato)
T
he National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has found that digital threats against free speech have become increasingly prominent in the past two years, as the pandemic has forced people to rely more on digital technology.
The human rights body recorded a total of 44 incidents that violated freedom of speech in 2020 and 2021, it said in its annual report on Monday. Some 29 cases were from complaints the commission had received, while the remaining 15 cases were from its monitoring activities.
A majority of violations of free speech occurred in the digital space, about 52 percent of the total cases, followed by offline incidents against the media, at 19 percent, against publicly expressed opinions (17 percent), against scientific discussions (10 percent) and the remaining 2 percent was against people testifying in court.
Digital harassment, ranging from hacking and website hijacking to doxing and Zoombombing, has been the most common form of violation targeting human rights activists and anticorruption activists, students and journalists.
An example was on April 22 of last year, when researcher Ravio Patra’s WhatsApp account was allegedly hacked and used to send out a compromising broadcast message calling for mass rioting. That same night, he was arrested and held on charges of treason and inciting violence. His controversial arrest led many to worry that similar action could be taken against activists in the future.
The past two years saw some 18 social media and digital-messaging accounts owned by rights and anticorruption activists, students and journalists being hijacked.
Two news websites tirto.id and tempo.co, meanwhile, were hacked in late 2020, in what activists believe were attempts to silence the media.
