A report titled “Freedom of Expression and the Media” in Indonesia, part of a series of “baseline studies on seven Southeast Asian countries” (what is “baseline”?), was released in December 2005 by Article 19 in London and the Independent Alliance of Journalists in Jakarta.

The report is funded by the European Commission and uses as its standard Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Indonesia has not signed.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

They deal mainly with freedom of expression as it relates to the work of journalists, newspapers, etc. Bores me to tears but I suppose someone has to keep account of these things, persecution of middle-class educated people like journalists doesn’t light my fire that’s all, I prefer to look at cases of the little guy getting stomped on, and I notice the question of blasphemy is entirely absent from this report. It does sometimes concern journalists, like here but it’s an issue perhaps consciously avoided in this report.

Report can be viewed here:
http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/indonesia-baseline-study.pdf