JPA Scholars Prevented from Blogging

This practice is nothing new in its spirit. I remember that JPA scholars were barred from going to listen to Anwar talk in the UK during the Reformasi period in 1998 / 1999. We got this letter from a JPA scholar stating some fears that his / her scholarship might be revoked because of blogging activities. I'll reproduce parts of the email below and then respond.


I'm a JPA scholarships holder who is bound to an overseas degree programme and I was awarded of this scholarship in 20XX. Recently, there was a scholar who was just awarded the scholarship in 20XX and was also an active blogger on blogspot.com, has her scholarships suspended and most probably be revoked. And the resons why her blog has garnered so much attention was because of some comments she had for her lecturers and the security guards in our college.

Subsequently, the director of the institution also gave her warning to any scholarships holder who is writing blog and giving commentary on political issues. Allegedly, some of the bloggers are also monitored by their sponsor, namely JPA. There is a more recent incident where a US-bound student who is famous of her polemic writing style and her open declaration as an atheist, was forced to delete her blog from blogspot.com. But, we have no evidents concerning that incident but one thing for sure, she really deleted her blog already.

As an active and devoted blogger, I must say I'm quite worried by the incident and I'm kind of forced to delete few of my posts under pressure. I don't know whether I'm under monitor or not but I'm pretty sure that JPA is having close eyes on all the scholar bloggers right now. Rumours are spreading like wildfire and to make thing worse, the director herself didn't really have a clear stand on the issue of whether a JPA-sponsored scholar can write blogs or not. She just commissioned us to write "responsibly" and "don't bite the hands that feed us". What are these supposed to mean?

I'm not writing to you just to voice up some random disgruntlement and frustration. We, as the scholarships holders just want to have our voice heard because apparently, no words have been leaked to any mainstream media and nobody has any inkling about what's happening in our institution.This is very frustrating. Now, we, the scholarships holders have no idea of what's really happening. What we want is the official statement, what should we do? What kind of content should we refrain from writing in our blog? Can scholars have our own blog? We have no official statement whatsoever.

I know there is no evidents to support my statement and as a scholar myself, I'm also facing a lot of dilemma like afraid of being discovered sending an email to an opposition leader or a prominent blogger. But, i think it's time to let everyone know our freedom of speech is restricted and some officers are apparently using our scholarships to threaten us for not speaking out what we are facing currently in the institution. The fear of losing the scholarships is simply too profound and my friend is also very concerned of my blog which has attracted quite a number of readers

It's an extremely sad situation to see some students cum bloggers who are always aware of socio-political issues and current issues forced to remain silent or act innocent. Although we have signed the contract, that doesn't mean we also have to sacrifice our freedom of speech. And I didn't see any specification in our contract that says the government-sponsored scholars are not allowed to "blog" or to voice out our opinions.

Is it wrong for JPA scholars to blog about political issues and to offer their view on them?

Let's think about such a problem arising in different contexts.

Would an undergraduate student who has been given a full scholarship to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton not be allowed to blog about his or her criticisms of certain Harvard or Yale or Princeton policies? That Harvard's admission policies work against Asian Americans for example. That Harvard is not transparent about hiring policies in regards to minorities. That Harvard does not treat its service workers fairly. That Harvard does allow some of its grad students to unionize. (Fictitious examples of course)

Given the commitment to free speech among US universities including the top universities, I cannot imagine that any of these universities would revoke a scholarship to a student because this student has been critical of some university policy in a public forum, be it a blog or writing a letter to a major US newspaper.

From a more personal perspective, I'm currently under a Duke scholarship for my PhD program and I cannot imagine Duke revoking this scholarship just because I blogged about some of my criticisms of certain Duke policies.

Such moves would create such an outcry among the academic community (not to mention the possibility of lawsuits) would dissuade any university from having such a policy (or from carrying out such moves).

Furthermore, JPA scholars are funded by taxpayers funds. They are not obliged to support the government of the day and hence should not be prevented from blogging about their views whether they are supportive or are against the government of the day.

However, I probably would draw the line at making personal and vindictive attacks against the administrators of the JPA scholarship. I think criticizing politicians is fair game but when I use a blog to attack certain administrators within the civil service, for example by asserting that this scholar gets preferential treatment because he or she has a relationship with one of the administrator, is probably going too far. But everything else, including JPA policies, should be fair game.