Freedom to write a Blog as a Freedom of Expression

Introduction

Nowadays, having and writing in our own blog become more popular in most communities. There are a lot kind of blogs which has been made in internet, either it’s a serious written-theme or not, either it is a blog that contained of news or the blog that has been made for an entertainment such as jokes-blog that contained of funny-jokes.

Freedom to write in a media called blog is one of the ways for people can express their ideas and opinions into a written, in order to let the society know what is on their mind and in order to give any informations and ideas to the society as the objective. Furthermore, the aim in writing an idea is the freedom of expression either it is in the form of protest or motivation for anyone.

The freedom to write in a blog is the freedom of expression, and the freedom of expression is also on of the Human Rights which are protected by the law in Indonesia. There are also some rules,norms and principles applied and must be obeyed so that blog-writers will not harm other people’s rights.


Freedom of Expression
"Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated." . Freedom of expression has been developed to be such an essential issue related to Human Rights. Human Right is rights (as freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution) regarded as belonging fundamentally to all persons . It is explained that this human rights is the basic rights which have to protect of every human life in this world. There is also other definition of Human Rights in Indonesian Human Rights Law Number 39 Year 1999 Article 1 which explain that human rights is a set of rights attributed with nature of human as a God creature which have to be respected by Law, Government and other people.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
International has declared freedom of expression (also known as freedom of speech) as one of human rights. Thus, this kind of freedom should be protected by the Law and respected by all human life in this world also by the Government. Freedom of expression has already begin in the 17th century. Freedom of has been seen as a basic philosophic concept, as a problem in government, and as a legal or constitutional right. John Milton in his Areopagiticia of 1644 : “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”. Also, there is an argument came from John Miller in a relation to freedom of speech an, and he said that freedom of speech included therein the right of express, to get information, to express an idea. There are three aspects according to John Miller’s argument, among others :
• the right to seek information and ideas;
• the right to receive information and ideas;
● the right to impart information and ideas

The constitutions of many old and new governments mention freedom of expression explixitly. Thus, Article 11 of the French Declration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, adopted in 1789, explain that “every citizen may speak, write and publish freely” and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948 “everyone has the right of freedom of opinion and expression”.


Freedom To Write

Writing is commonly known as a hobby. But, just a few of people who realized that writing is one of the media that we can use as a democracy tool. By writing something we can share our ideas, wants and feels about anything. In a relation with democracy, we can share our protest, ideas and feels to the Government who role the state we are living in.

There are a lot of media we can use as writing field, such as Diary, Newspaper, Magazine, and Blog. In this essay, writer want to explain about writing a blog related to Law which protect it. Thus, in the next paragraph will explain more about blog and other related issues and problems.

As mentioned in previous part (Freedom of Expression), there is a law that mentioned about the right of freedom of opinion and expression. It is in French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789. A blog is one of the art that can be a media for people to write on and publish it easily through internet. Based on that, we can refer it to International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights that writing a blog is one of freedom which protected by Law. ICCPR mentioned that everyone has a right to freedom of expression either orally , in print or in writing in the form of art or through other media of his choice.

Blog is a free media through internet so people can easily write their feelings and others in order to people know about it. In addition, blog is just not easy for the writer to write anything but also it is easy for the reader or target to get any information because the internet is nowadays easier to reach. A lot of people write a blog to express what they think and what is their ideas or just want protest about anything with different intention of each writer. It refers to John Miller’s argument according to three aspects of freedom of speech / expression : the right to seek, to receive, and to impart information and ideas.

Lots of website or social networking contained of blog facility inside them. It proves that nowadays people more concern about expressing their ideas and opinion into a written. They facilitating people to write in a blog, to express their ideas and opinion, because democracy is growing up and the essence of democracy is public ideas and opinion. Freedom to write is important according to democracy, because writing and especially writing in a blog is one of the ways people can express their thoughts about the Government’s project and Government itself. From the blog, Government can also know about what their people thought about their project.

Other example of function of writing a blog is we can share about our dissapoinment of private-public facility, such as Hospital. Few months ago we heard about Prita-case, which told us that there is a woman named Prita and she sent an email to her friend that contained of protest / disappointing comment about Omni Hospital in Jakarta and her friend publish Prita’s comment into a blog. Then, Omni Hospital hold back and reported Prita for the defamation. Afterwards, Prita get caught by the police and the Through this case we can learn, about the protection of human rights especially on freedom of expression is not well-protected in Indonesia. Because, there is only a Law that protect human rights but it is just protect a general of human right. There is no National Law in Indonesia which protect freedom of expression specifically.
Freedom to write as a freedom of expression is one of the set of human rights. There are many constitutions, laws, and international convenant mentioned about human rights especially on freedom of expression in order to try to protect it. But, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, in Indonesia there is still no Laws mentioned of freedom of expression specifically. It is better if Indonesia has Laws which can protect freedom of expression for its people, it is as well Indonesia is a democracy state which should give a freedom to its people to express their ideas and opinion based on human rights. However, behind a freedom to expression there is also norms which have to obeyed in order to respect other’s rights. Hence, as a good citizen we can use our right as a human but not harm other people’s rights.