• Politics of Indonesia: Has Democracy Gone Over the Top?

    At the inauguration of the People's Conscience Party (Hanura)'s new central leadership board on Wednesday (22/02), Indonesian President Joko Widodo said "Indonesian democracy has recently gone over the top". He referred to the various controversial cases and demonstrations that have emerged in recent months involving hate speech related to race, religion, ethnicity and class.

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  • Indonesia Wants Facebook to Open Local Company in Hoax Combat

    Rudiantara, Indonesia's Minister for Communications and Information, urges social media platform Facebook to upgrade its existing representative office in Indonesia into a proper company (PT PMA). Earlier this week Rudiantara met a Facebook delegation, led by the head of global policy management Monika Bickert, in Jakarta. Indonesian authorities believe that by having a proper company in Indonesia, Facebook would be in a better position to tackle negative content and fake news (hoaxes), while communication with the government would improve.

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  • New Export Rules: Operations Freeport Indonesia in Jeopardy

    Uncertainty about the continuation of the company's copper concentrate exports could imply that Freeport Indonesia needs to terminate operations at the Grasberg mine in Papua. Currently, shipments of copper concentrate from the mine to the smelter in Gresik (East Java) have ceased, while the company's storage facilities are full to the brim. Part of workers at the Grasberg mine have been sent home as the processing plant has not been producing any concentrate since Friday (10/02).

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  • Road to Chaotic Jakarta Election: New Anti-Ahok Protest

    Thousands of hardline Muslims gathered at Jakarta's Istiqlal mosque on Saturday (11/02) to protest against Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (popularly known as Ahok). Protesters accuse Ahok - a Christian of Chinese descent - of blasphemy (insulting Islam) based on a manipulated video in which he expressed inappropriate language that surfaced on social media in October 2016. The protest, locally called "Aksi 112" (Action of 11 February) is the fourth anti-Ahok protest over the past five months and has strong political motives.

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