Criminal Policy and ITE Law
Law enforcement that is solely repressive without paying attention to the preventive approach will conflict with the nature and characteristics of crime that comes from the community.
Muladi
Kompas daily (23/9/2019) on page 3, in the political and legal flashback rubric, reported that since the Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE) Law took effect in 2008, the number of criminal cases related to the law has continued to increase from year to year. From 2017 to 2019 alone, a total of 6,895 people were investigated by the National Police, with 38 percent of the investigations related to insults to national figures, authorities, public institutions, 20 percent related to the spread of deceptions, 12 percent related to hate speech and the rest to other actions.
According to Damar Juniarto, executive director of the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet), vulnerable groups for prosecution are journalists, anticorruption activists, environmental activists and minorities, both gender and religious. SAFEnet data shows there were 245 cases of violations of the ITE Law in the 2008 to 2018 period relating to criminal acts of defamation, hate speech, libel and threats, pornography, accusations of defamation and crimes against the general authorities.