58 Dictating the Internet: Case of Jakarta Globe, Okezone.com and Harian Bangsa In April 2009, the Police Chief of East Java, Chief Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam announced that criminal defamation complaints had been filed under sections 310 and 311 of the Penal Code against news outlets Jakarta Globe, Okezone.com and Harian Bangsa following articles they had published online which had reported on an election complaint filed that day. The complaint had been filed with electoral authorities alleging that politician Edhi Baskoro Yudhoyono had been involved in election votebuying. The complaints filed against the news outlets were lodged on the basis that the outlets had, in reporting on the election complaint, defamed Edhi himself.175 The police chief thereafter announced charges had been dropped. One journalist noted how this experience showed that even in cases in which journalists had discharged their duties professionally and without bias, “because of this defamation law, we can still be brought to court.”176 Singapore In Singapore, civil defamation lawsuits have long been invoked by representatives of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) – including by former Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong and current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – to sue and seek hefty financial compensation in terms of damages from individuals who express dissent.177 The systematic use of these civil actions since the 1970s has resulted in curtailment of free expression through the imposition of heavy financial burdens or outright bankrupting of members of the political opposition, independent journalists, local or international news outlets and ordinary individuals.178 In recent 175 Mail & Guardian, ‘Indonesian president’s son in vote-buying row’, 20 November 2019, Available at: https://mg.co.za/article/2009-04-08-indonesian-presidents-son-in-votebuying-row 176 Human Rights Watch, ‘Turning Critics into Criminals – The Human Rights Consequences of Criminal Defamation Law in Indonesia’, 2010, pp. 31, 32, Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/ files/reports/indonesia0510webwcover.pdf 177 For a single defamation suit, the Prime Minister has been awarded up to S$500,000 in damages and Members of Parliament have been awarded up to S$210,000 in damages. See Po Jen Yap, Constitutional Dialogue in Common Law, p. 117, footnote 64; See also Tsun Hang Tey, ‘Singapore’s jurisprudence of political defamation and its triple-whammy impact on political speech’, 2008, Public Law, pp. 452 to 462 (‘Tsun Hang Tey, 2008’; Cameron Sim, ‘The Singapore Chill: Political Defamation and the Normalization of a Statist Rule of Law’, 2011, Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, Vol. 20(2), pp. 319 to 353. 178 Tsun Hang Tey, 2008, pp. 452, 453, referring, inter alia, to Jeyaretnam JB v Lee Kuan Yew [1978-1979] Sing.L.R. 197; [1979] SGCA 13; [1979] 2 MLJ 282; Lee Hsien Loong v Singapore