Soraya Permatasari, Jakarta – Indonesian police said on Saturday that more than 30 foreigners, including a four-year-old girl, detained at a human rights seminar were suspected of immigration violations and would be questioned next week.
Police detained the foreigners, among them 20 Australians, after breaking up a seminar on worker and human rights on Friday, but allowed them to return to their Jakarta hotels on Saturday after initial questioning. Police confiscated their passports and ordered them to report to police again on Monday.
"They are all suspects for violating the immigration law," Jakarta police spokesman Anton Bahrul Alam told reporters, adding they were released after their embassies guaranteed all would return on Monday. They face a maximum penalty of five years in jail or a 25 million rupiah ($2,230) fine if convicted of immigration violations.
Participants at the seminar, attended by about 300 people, said armed police stormed the hotel on the outskirts of Jakarta on Friday afternoon where it was being held.
The four-year-old, Zoe Hinman from Sydney, was with her parents, officials said. Among the others were nationals from Japan, New Zealand, Britain, the United States, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Pakistan and Germany, officials said. Police said most spent Friday night in police detention.
One of the Australian detainees, Helen Jarvis, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales, told ABC radio by telephone the experience had been unpleasant. "We have the protection of the [Australian] embassy, which has been very valuable. But the Indonesian friends who organised the conference were beaten up badly and also one of them has been interrogated," she said. Police did not comment on the allegations, although several Indonesian activists detained have been released.
Conference organisers accused police of using brutal tactics more in keeping with the authoritarian rule of disgraced former President Suharto. They said police had claimed the event was aimed at disrupting an impeachment hearing of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid scheduled for August.
Alam said the event was halted because of the presence of the foreigners, who he earlier said had entered Indonesia as tourists. Foreigners attending seminars in Indonesia usually need to obtain visas beforehand, but many foreign nationals, including Australians, can visit as tourists without visas.
One participant said Friday's raid caused some panic. "Maybe 50 or 60 police stormed into the meeting room armed with guns, including rifles held in an offensive stance," Max Lane, an Australian, said on ABC radio. "They barked something over a loudspeaker in Indonesian language, creating quite a tense and worrying situation."