International and local media observers and practitioners have warned of a shift in the nature of threats against journalists despite a decreasing number of cases of physical violence in the country.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) has revealed that violence against journalists in Indonesia decreased from 64 reported cases last year to 43 this year. However, that data did not necessarily signal greater freedom of the press in the country, because a rise in digital attacks on journalists was mostly left out of the debate, media observers and practitioners said.

Febriana Firdaus, 36, then-journalist for news site Rappler, said she had experienced a series of online attacks from people who claimed to be supporters of then-Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama after she wrote about evictions in Jakarta in 2016.

She was also condemned by netizens for an article on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people published by Rappler earlier that year. Febriana said online attacks against her reached a peak when she wrote about the 1965 tragedy and the alleged relationship between the hardline Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and Indonesian Military generals.

As a result, Febriana received death threats, was called a neo-communist in a derogatory manner, her pictures were spread over the internet and her family — without her consent — was informed of all the threats and bullying against her as well. It took her three months to completely return back to a normal state after the attacks.

“The impact of online attacks was horrendous. The online account used to post hate messages against me was followed by hundreds of thousands of people. Can you imagine how many people targeted me? I was scared, and it has traumatized me until now,” Febriana told The Jakarta Post.

Febriana, who is now a freelance journalist for Al Jazeera and focuses on Papua, said she was still being attacked online for her work. While the AJI and Free Press Unlimited had done a good job in protecting her, she said she hoped the government would strengthen protection of all Indonesian journalists.

Tiara Sutari, 25, who works for CNN Indonesia, was subjected to online bullying after writing a critical column about a K-pop boy band in 2017. A number of Indonesian fans of the Korean band wrote on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, telling her to kill herself and mocking her journalistic skills.

“I was told not to open my social media accounts at that time because the hate comments were tremendous. Those people also sent emails to my office asking them to fire me,” Tiara told the Post.

She also had rotten eggs sent to her house, along with a letter containing numerous derogatory words directed at her.

“I cried at that time and did not know what to do. I had never imagined that being a journalist would be that hard,” Tiara said.

Despite the lower number of physical violence against journalists in Indonesia in 2019, the shift from physical to digital abuse of journalists proves that the government is doing far from enough to protect journalists.

AJI chairman Abdul Manan said the AJI had recorded at least three cases of online persecution of journalists in 2017 and 2018.

Meanwhile, the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) recorded four cases of digital attacks against journalists in 2019, twice as many as in 2018.

“The increasing number of digital attacks also indicates that the true number of online harassment cases against journalists in Indonesia could be higher than the recorded figure,” said LBH Pers chairman Ade Wahyudin.

Online harassment and digital attacks against journalist have apparently become a global phenomenon that has prompted growing concern in recent years. A survey published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in September found that 90 percent of female and gender-nonconforming journalists surveyed in the United States cited online harassment as the biggest threat, while 71 percent of the respondents surveyed in Canada had the same opinion.

Meanwhile, 162 incidents of journalists being harassed online in European Union countries were submitted to Mapping Media Reports from May 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2018 — an average of one case a week.

In Indonesia, no data on digital attacks against journalists is recorded by media observers or the government. However, the NGO International Media Support (IMS) in its 2017 publication Defending Journalism stated that Indonesia was a country that needed a comprehensive, coordinated safety program for the safety of journalists. The threats against journalists, according to IMS stem mainly from the military, police nationalist groups and religious radical groups that could be delivered through physical, verbal and also online abuse in social media.

Febriana expressed concern that Law No. 11/2008 on electronic information and transactions (ITE), which stipulates criminal punishment for defamation, could be used to curb the freedom of expression in Indonesia. She was also of the opinion that the 20-year-old Press Law was not strong enough to protect journalists in the digital era.

“In order to protect journalists, I guess the Press Law needs to be renewed and strengthened. On the other hand, discriminatory laws like the ITE Law need to be reviewed.” Febriana said.

Puri Kencana Putri, a campaign manager from Amnesty International Indonesia, said protecting journalists was such an important matter that the government needed to be more attentive to the safety of journalists through legal mechanisms.

“Journalism is very close to the human rights work, and the mass media are the center of information distributed in society […] This is where the truth should be delivered in the very first place,” she said at the panel discussion Human Rights, Press Freedom, Protection and Safety for Journalists held in Jakarta on Tuesday. (trn)

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