(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Home Affairs Soedirdja Surjadi, RSF protested the arrest of Oswald Iten, a Swiss journalist working for the Zurich-based German-language newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”. The journalist is being detained by police in West Papua province (formerly Irian Jaya) for having “performed journalistic activities” without a press visa. The […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Home Affairs Soedirdja Surjadi, RSF protested the arrest of Oswald Iten, a Swiss journalist working for the Zurich-based German-language newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”. The journalist is being detained by police in West Papua province (formerly Irian Jaya) for having “performed journalistic activities” without a press visa. The reporter either faces deportation or a jail sentence. RSF asked the minister of home affairs to use his influence with the competent authorities in order to release the journalist as soon as possible. Even if the journalist has not complied with the law by not applying for a press visa, Iten simply exercised his right to inform, as guaranteed by the Indonesian press law and by the international treaties ratified by the
country. “This arrest shows the difficulty for foreign journalists to freely practise their profession in certain regions of Indonesia which are victims of violence,” stated Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. This year alone, journalists have been attacked and threatened while covering riots in the Moluccas, Aceh and Timor.
According to information collected by RSF, on 2 December 2000, Iten, a Swiss ethnologist and journalist with the German-language newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, was arrested at his hotel in Jayapura (West Papua province, east of the country) by Indonesian police. The authorities accused him of “performing journalistic activities” with only a tourist visa, notably taking pictures of an event celebrating Independence Day and photographing the arrest of Papua chief Theys Eluay. Iten is being held in Jayapura prison, in difficult conditions, and could be sentenced to five years in jail. According to other sources, the journalist could be expelled from the country. This arrest occurs in a very tense political context. Clashes between the Indonesian army and Papua independence activists have already caused many deaths. The independence movement’s main leaders have been arrested.
In terms of Indonesian legislation, foreign journalists working in the country must have a press visa. In September 1999, American journalist Allan Nairn, working for the weekly “The Nation” and Pacifica Radio, was jailed in Timor for a week, for the same reason. He was eventually expelled from Indonesia (see IFEX alerts of 21, 20, 17, 15 and 14 September 1999).
