human rights violations and to repeal blasphemy provisions in laws and regulations. These included several provisions of the Criminal Code and Law No. 1/PNPS/1965, which imposed restrictions on freedoms of expression and of religion and belief.1 IMPUNITY Despite commitments made by the President, Indonesia failed to address past human rights violations. In February, the Administrative Court in the capital, Jakarta, overturned a decision by the Public Information Commission ordering the government to publish a report on the 2004 murder of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, which reportedly implicated senior intelligence officers. The Court made the decision on the grounds that the current government had not received the report from the previous government. In August, the Supreme Court upheld the Administrative Court’s decision. During the UPR, Indonesia promised that the Attorney General would finalize a criminal investigation into alleged gross human rights violations in Wasior in 2001 and Wamena in 2003, both in Papua region, and forward the case to the Human Rights Court established under Law No. 26/2000. However, this had not happened by the end of the year. FREEDOMS OF ASSEMBLY, ASSOCIATION AND EXPRESSION The authorities continued to prosecute those participating in peaceful political activities, particularly in areas with a history of proindependence movements such as Papua. Prisoner of conscience Oktovianus Warnares remained in detention because he refused to sign a document declaring his allegiance to the state of Indonesia, despite having served two thirds of his prison sentence and being eligible for release on parole. He had been convicted of “rebellion” (makar) in 2013 after taking part in activities peacefully marking the 50th anniversary of the handover of Papua to the Indonesian government by the UN Temporary Executive Authority. 194 In August Novel Baswedan, an investigator for the Corruption Eradication Commission, was reported to the police by the Commission’s director of investigation under Article 27(3) of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, which concerns online defamation. The defamation report related to an email he had sent in his capacity as representative of the Commission’s workers’ union, criticizing the director’s leadership. Novel Baswedan suffered an acid attack in Jakarta on 11 April that severely damaged his corneas. At the time of the attack he was leading an ongoing investigation into misappropriation by highranking government officials of funds for an electronic ID cards project. On 10 July President Widodo signed Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perppu) No. 2/2017, amending the 2013 Law on Mass Organizations to remove judicial safeguards over the process of banning NGOs and other organizations. The new legislation, enacted by Parliament in October, would impose restrictions on the rights to freedom of association, expression, religion and belief, which were even more extensive than those currently set out in the Law on Mass Organizations. The Law already stifled the work of human rights defenders and reflected discriminatory attitudes towards certain groups.2 Security forces and vigilante groups broke up closed-door discussions and public events relating to serious human rights violations committed in 1965. On 1 August, the local police and military from East Jakarta disrupted a workshop in Jakarta concerning the findings of the International Peoples Tribunal 1965, a civil society initiative to raise international awareness about the mass human rights violations that occurred that year. On 16 September the police banned a closed-door seminar at the office of the Indonesian and Jakarta Legal Aid Institute featuring a discussion by survivors of the 1965 violations. On the night of 17 September, a crowd of around 1,000 claiming to be “anti-communists” Amnesty International Report 2017/18