Human Rights Watch condemns Indonesia's crackdown on dissent: Indonesia’s decision to expel Sidney Jones, a prominent American political analyst, raises concerns about the country’s crackdown on critical observers ahead of the July 5 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The Indonesian government has also announced that it has placed 20 international and local nongovernmental organizations on a “watch list” as threats to the country’s security. The decision to deport Jones, Indonesia country director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), appears directly related to her critical reporting on Indonesia. Last week Gen. Abdullah Hendropriyono, head of the country’s State Intelligence Agency (BIN), publicly stated that Jones’s reports were inaccurate and biased. ICG has regularly criticized Indonesian authorities about their response to the ongoing activity of the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah as well as the government’s responsibility for human rights violations during armed conflicts in the provinces of Aceh and Papua. Gen. Hendropriyono also accused 20 local and international nongovernmental groups of endangering national security in the period leading up to the presidential election on July 5. Indonesia’s national police chief, Da’i Bachtiar, has also said that his office is now monitoring the Indonesian and foreign activists who have been identified by BIN as possible security threats.