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Attacks on journalists increase in 2019 with rise in doxing, cyberattacks: LBH Pers
Throughout 2019, the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) recorded not only an increasing number of incidents of violence against journalists, but also observed new types of attacks such as cyberattacks and doxing
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span>Throughout 2019, the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) recorded not only an increasing number of incidents of violence against journalists, but also observed new types of attacks such as cyberattacks and doxing.
While 71 cases were recorded in 2018, LBH Pers identified 79 in 2019.
LBH Pers executive director Ade Wahyudin said on Monday that journalists were increasingly becoming the targets of online attacks for stories they had published. Some have even become victims of doxing, while many others have had their social media accounts hacked.
“A journalist from tirto.id received an email demanding he take down his story about the mastermind of the riots in May,” Ade said, referring to the postelection protests in front of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) building in Central Jakarta.
“At first, he ignored it but continued to receive threats, several days later he was notified by Google that internet users were trying to change his email and social media account passwords,” he added.
Doxing, meanwhile, involves the publishing of an individual’s personal information without their consent and often leads to further online attacks. LBH Pers recorded 5 cases last year.
Besides the attacks, last year LBH Pers recorded an increasing number of cases of journalists from online news organizations being reported to the police over copyright issues.
“The Press Council has established guidelines for online media reporting, but not all online journalists have followed them,” LBH Pers lawyer Gading Yonggar Ditya said.
He added that the issue would likely persist this year as there were thousands of online news outlets across the country and not all were registered with the council.
Gading said the Press Council, online media companies and journalist organizations and alliances needed to join hands to ensure journalistic standards were upheld.
Of the 79 reported attacks, two were against journalists of a campus press organizations.
In total, 33 cases were reported in Jakarta, while eight cases were reported in Southeast Sulawesi, seven in South Sulawesi and five in East Java.
“There were two large protests in Jakarta last year, the one against the presidential election result and another in front of the House of Representatives building complex in Senayan. Both protests led to riots after journalists were assaulted by the police or by protesters,” Ade explained.
The majority of the cases involved physical abuse, cyberattacks and other forms of violence such as intimidation, arrests and the destruction of reporting equipment as well as bans from reporting at certain events or in certain locations.
LBH Pers has provided legal assistance to some journalists, but others have seen their cases progress very slowly or stall.
As an example, Ade highlighted the case of Nibras Nada Nailufar, a journalist from kompas.com, who was reportedly assaulted by a police officer as she was reporting on the student protests in Senayan in October.
Another case involves Haris Prabowo, a journalist from tirto.id, who was also allegedly assaulted by a policeman during the student protests in Senayan.
In 2020, Ade said Indonesia could expect to see increased attacks against journalists, as the year would see journalists cover a number of contentious issues that could potentially put them in dangerous situations.
“Two hundred regional elections will be held in 2020. As we learned from last year’s presidential election, this year’s elections could spark conflicts within society,” he explained.
Echoing Ade, LBH Pers researcher Mona Ervita highlighted the ongoing deliberation of several bills and law revisions that, if passed, would further jeopardize the future of press freedom. The draft revision of the Criminal Code alone, Mona noted, contained at least 11 articles that could potentially be used to arrest journalists.
The articles, according to Mona, used words that were prone to being misconstrued such as “spreading” and “broadcasting”, words that are commonly associated with journalism.
“One of the articles is about ‘insulting the president’. We need to remember that the Constitutional Court revoked that law in 2006. Why would we revive such an authoritarian regulation?” she said, urging media organizations and activists who were concerned about freedom of the press and expression to pay close attention to the Criminal Code amendment process.
