(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: 14 December 2000 For immediate release Oswald Iten is free The Swiss journalist detained since December 2 in West Papua will be expelled from Indonesia Reporters Sans Frontières welcomes this decision by the Jakarta authorities After 12 days of detention, Oswald Iten, journalist with the Swiss […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
14 December 2000
For immediate release
Oswald Iten is free
The Swiss journalist detained since December 2 in West Papua will be expelled from Indonesia
Reporters Sans Frontières welcomes this decision by the Jakarta authorities
After 12 days of detention, Oswald Iten, journalist with the Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung, was released on 13 December, in the evening, from a prison in Jayapura (West Papua, Indonesia). He slept at his hotel and is to be expelled from Indonesia on 16 December. The journalist confirmed the Indonesian authorities’ decision to Reporters Sans Frontières by telephone and promised to give his testimony of his painful experience in this Indonesian police jail. He was detained in a small insalubrious cell with around 30 separatist activists.
Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders RSF) welcomes this release, of course, but regrets that the police authorities in West Papua showed an unreasonable determination to maintain the Swiss journalist in jail.
This journalist and ethnologist was arrested on 2 December 2000 by policemen and accused of violating immigration laws. According to the Indonesian authorities, Oswald Iten misused his tourist visa by working in Indonesia.
Reporters Sans Frontières asks the government of Jakarta to facilitate the work of journalists in West Papua province, where events are occurring that must be made known to the international community.
