Tuesday, April 08, 2008

UU ITE (Information and Electronic Transaction Law) = Law to allow information censorship by Indonesian Government


Indonesian government has produce a law that govern information and 'electronic transaction'. It called 'UU ITE' Undang Undang Informasi & Transaksi Elektronik. The law aimed to prevent cyber crime such as carding which is quite popular in Indonesia.
The draft of the law can be viewed here

However, a lot of people see it as a law and base for the government to do internet censorship.

This week (week of 8 April 2008), it's widely known that a popular site YouTube has been instructed by Ministry of Communication and Information to be blocked nation wide. This instruction has to be complied by all ISP.

The reason for YouTube blocking is because there a video called Fitna made by a Dutch politician that has been touted as a misleading critique of Islam.

As of today, the whole Indonesia that use local ISP can not access YouTube. Some ISP go even further by blocking a few other site including multiply.com

Below is the Ministry's letter to ISP :

photo credit : KOMPAS/RENE L PATTIRADJAWANE link

A loosely translation of the content :

"In relation of the video called Fitna (made by Dutch politician, Geert Wilders' that circulate via internet media, and can cause inter religious disharmony globally.

Because of that, we instructed you to coordinate with APJII (Indonesia ISP Assosiation) members and IIX (Indonesia Internet Exchange) authorities with all effort to block the site and blog that post that video.

This was told to be done obidiently.

Ministry of Communication and Information
Muhammad Nuh

cc : Indonesia Police Chief.
"

News in Jakarta Post regarding Fitna link

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear all,
In representing Asosiasi Internet Indonesia, I have wrote an article discussing the weaknesses and some illegal basis of the new information law, which you can download at http://www.isocid.net/kelemahanuuite.pdf . If you need an English version, please send an email to sekretaris at isocid.net

adinoto said...

Hehehe pathetics huh? So which one you choose brother? :D