Indonesia was a surveillance state under the Dutch. Dutch king apologizes in 2020.
Censorship & surveillance in Indonesia
Indonesia was ruled from 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, then by the Dutch state which carried out many wars to pacify the archipelago.1 These wars included the Java War (1825–1830)2 and the Bali Wars3 (1846, 1849, 1858, 1868, 1906 – 1908).
Port cities such as Jakarta (named Batavia 1619–1942) were seen as hotbeds for the spread of nationalism and opposition to Dutch imperialism. The Dutch government attempted to secure power through maritime policing networks, close collaboration with British and French surveillance entities ashore, and by segregation on ships, meant to 'teach' those on board their position within imperial hierarchies.4Â
The prohibition on publishing press offences (persdelict) articles were added to the Dutch colony's Penal Code in 1914. These were articles that expressed or instigated feelings of hostility, hatred, or contempt against the Netherlands— writers could be jailed for up to seven years. In 1931 press restrictions (persbreidel)  were added so the Dutch governor-general could ban publications he believed threatened public order. The persdelict was aimed at Indonesian nationalists and radical Muslims in the 1910s and 1920s, when the European community in Indonesia was threatened by the rise of nationalism and the growth of the Indonesian communist party.5
The persbreidel also enabled the Dutch to prevent publications that might antagonize Japan after Japan's military incursion into China, especially anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese in Indonesia.
The Dutch colonial state regarded the Chinese press actions as a risk and established the Press Curbing Ordinance (persbreidelordonnantie) in 1931. Any newspaper which published anti-Japanese or offensive articles to the colonial authorities was charged with persbreidel. Chinese newspapers were targets with more than 80 closed. Political censorship against the press shifted its primary target from the Indonesian nationalists to the Chinese.
The Japanese invaded in 1942.
After the defeat of Japan in 1945 the Dutch returned and fought Indonesians in their war of independence killing thousands of Indonesians.
Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch in 1949.6
The Dutch King apologized in 2020.7
Hagen, Piet, and Erik Eshuis (2019). Koloniale oorlogen in Indonesië Vijf eeuwen verzet tegen vreemde overheersing (Colonial Wars in Indonesia: Five centuries of resistance to foreign rule). Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers.
Carey, Peter (1976). "The Origins of the Java War (1825-30)". The English Historical Review. 91.
Hannah, Willard A. (2016). A brief history of Bali: piracy, slavery, opium and guns: the story of an island paradise (Second ed.). Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle.
Alexanderson, Kris. 2019. Subversive Seas : Anticolonial Networks Across the Twentieth-Century Dutch Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yamamoto, Nobuto. 2019. Censorship in Colonial Indonesia 1901-1940. : BRILL.
Kenneth Christie, and Robert Cribb. 2003. Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe : Ghosts at the Table of Democracy. Politics/History. London: Routledge.
Dutch king apologizes for 'excessive violence' in colonial Indonesia (2020). Reuters, March 10.
Even though they're performative, I still feel that these gestures are meaningful in some way insofar as they acknowledge historical wrongdoing -- although it doesn't help the dead. King Willem-Alexander (b. 1967) is in no way personally responsible for the depredations of the Dutch Empire (when it existed), yet as the living embodiment of the Dutch state he feels compelled to apologize. It's like the old Welsh sin-eater tradition, in a way. It must be weird and annoying to be a monarch in the modern world.
I will be glad to be contradicted, but I am fairly sure no U.S. president has apologized to any other country for American acts of aggression. The closest we are going to get is probably U.S. Grant:
"For myself," Grant wrote later about the United States war against Mexico, "I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."
https://www.army.mil/article/216806/grant_in_mexico_one_of_the_most_unjust_wars_ever_waged
"The persbreidel also enabled the Dutch to prevent publications that might antagonize Japan after Japan's military incursion into China, especially anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese in Indonesia."
And now it's corporate edicts against the wrong sort of writing about China.
"Port cities such as Jakarta (named Batavia 1619–1942) were seen as hotbeds for the spread of nationalism and opposition to Dutch imperialism. The Dutch government attempted to secure power through maritime policing networks, close collaboration with British and French surveillance entities ashore, and by segregation on ships, meant to 'teach' those on board their position within imperial hierarchies. The prohibition on publishing press offences (persdelict) articles were added to the Dutch colony's Penal Code in 1914. These were articles that expressed or instigated feelings of hostility, hatred, or contempt against the Netherlands— writers could be jailed for up to seven years."
...not to mention the recurrent trend of the elites of one country hooking up with the elites of another country (often previously sworn enemies) to control their respective populations.
elm
freedom for who, exactly?