Censorship in the Dutch East Indies was significantly stricter than in the Netherlands, as the freedom of the press guaranteed in the Constitution of the Netherlands did not apply in the country's overseas colonies. Before the twentieth century, official censorship focused mainly on Dutch-language materials, aiming at protecting the trade and business interests of the colony and the reputation of colonial officials. In the early twentieth century, with the rise of Indonesian nationalism, censorship also encompassed materials printed in local languages such as Malay and Javanese, and enacted a repressive system of arrests, surveillance and deportations to combat anti-colonial sentiment.
History
Dutch East India Company rule (1600s–1799) Although the Dutch started to establish a presence in Southeast Asia at the turn of the seventeenth century, there was no functioning European printing press in their settlements there for several decades, and the first government bulletins were handwritten circulars. The Dutch East India Company contracted the first European bookbinder in the Indies, Hendrick Brandt, in Batavia in 1668. The first Indies censor Peter Pauw was appointed that same year to read and approve any materials printed by that press, and the others which were founded in the following years. Although the rules were not as clearly codified as in later eras, they operated under the principle of preventive censorship. Under the authority of the Governor General, materials deemed unsuitable for publication could be held back and printers could be imprisoned or deported. The East India Company did have a veto on such cases but rarely involved itself. Pauw's duties were taken over in 1692 by Abraham van Riebeek. After contracting with various private printers in Batavia over the next decades, authorities finally established a government printing house in the Batavia Castle in 1712.
The first newspaper in the Indies was the short-lived (1744–6); being printed in Dutch, which was understood by only a tiny minority in the Indies, it did not have a wide distribution. Its content consisted mainly of government bulletins, auction news, and advertisements. However, as the Dutch East India Company became afraid that such a paper would reveal trade secrets to other European powers in Asia, its three-year contract was not renewed in 1746 and it was forced to close. The only other independent newspaper to appear in the Indies in this era was the which appeared in 1776. Published in Batavia, it only covered auctions and other business bulletins; nonetheless, it was closely scrutinized by censors.
Christian printed materials in the Indies were also subject to censorship by the Dutch Reformed Church. However, very little religious material was printed in the Indies during this era, due to the lack of printing capacity and skilled workforce.
French and British interregnum (1799–1816) After the Dutch East India Company defaulted in 1799, the colony was taken over directly by the Dutch crown. However, starting in 1806, the colony was occupied by France and then Britain during a period called the French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies. Herman Willem Daendels was appointed Governor General of the Indies by Napoleon in 1807. He purchased the City Printing House in Batavia and merged it with the Castle Printing House to form a new government printer, the , and began to publish a new government bulletin after 1810 (the ). He seems to have continued to organize the small printing industry in Batavia according to the principle of preventive censorship. , which was still being published in the Castle Printing House, shut down during the transfer of assets to the new administration, as its functions were assumed by the Courant. However, that publication only lasted until August 1811, when the British conquered Java.
During the period of British rule over the Indies, printing house was taken over by W. Hunter, who had additional equipment and workers brought from Bengal. In February 1812 a new English-language government publication was created, the Java Government Gazette. That publication had a very different tone from the Dutch ones that had preceded it; it included commentary about politics, Indies folklore, and humour on top of the usual business news.