Jakarta – Two international press freedom groups have strongly criticised the Indonesian government's decision to ban an Australian correspondent from working in the country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a letter to President Megawati Sukarnoputri received by AFP Tuesday, described the ban on Lindsay Murdoch as "a clear attempt to punish Murdoch for writing stories that criticise government policies."

Murdoch and his employers, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, said Sunday he had been refused a routine extension of his working visa because of his reporting on human rights issues.

Murdoch said he had been told that two articles in particular led to the ban by an interdepartmental committee. One was about how East Timorese children had been taken from refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor and left in orphanages on Java island. Another told how soldiers in a village in Aceh province killed a four-month-old baby in May by pouring boiling water over it.

"To the best of our knowledge, Indonesian authorities have not denied that these incidents occurred," the New York-based CPJ said in its letter to Megawati urging her to reverse the decision. "They should not be expelling a reporter for bringing such abuses to light."

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement the ban was almost certainly a "shocking and authoritarian" attempt to punish Murdoch for the reports. It said it was the first time since the end of the Suharto regime in 1998 that a resident foreign correspondent had been prevented from working.

The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club has called the move "a serious blow to press freedom in Indonesia."

Foreign ministry information official Wahid Supriyadi has said the Australian newspapers were told about three months ago of the decision not to renew Murdoch's journalist visa. They were advised that they should assign a new correspondent.

Both newspapers refused on the grounds that no government should be able to choose which correspondent operates in its country. Supriyadi declined to comment on the reason for the refusal to extend Murdoch's working visa but said he was not banned from living in the country.