(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has welcomed the release of Metro TV journalist Meutya Hafid and cameraman Budiyanto. The Indonesian journalists were abducted on 15 February 2005 in Ramadi, east of Baghdad. The Committee of Ulemas, Iraq’s main Sunni organisation, broke the news of their release on 21 February. Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the report a few […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has welcomed the release of Metro TV journalist Meutya Hafid and cameraman Budiyanto. The Indonesian journalists were abducted on 15 February 2005 in Ramadi, east of Baghdad.
The Committee of Ulemas, Iraq’s main Sunni organisation, broke the news of their release on 21 February. Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the report a few hours later. The two are reportedly on their way to Jordan.
Their kidnappers, the Jaish al-Mujahedeen (Army of Warriors), said they had freed the two Indonesian journalists after confirming their identities. They offered their apologies to the Indonesian people.
Metro TV’s Director of News Programming, Don Bosco, told RSF, “It’s a marvellous surprise. Their freedom was won thanks to Metro TV’s appeals, broadcast by Al-Jazeera, and those by different Iraqi Muslim scholars.”
On 19 February, Jakarta sent a delegation of crisis management experts, as well as one of Metro TV’s owners, Surya Paloh, to Amman, to secure the release of the two journalists. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also appeared on Al-Jazeera television to appeal for the journalists’ release.
“The Indonesian journalists kidnapped in Iraq were sent by their editor and were in no way seeking to interfere with the country’s internal affairs. As the world’s largest Muslim country we are concerned about what happens in Iraq and these journalists were bringing us news of this country,” the president said.
