Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Just five weeks into its renewed war against separatist rebels in Aceh, Indonesia has been accused of, in effect, banning foreign journalists from the province.

Although the Government and armed forces, TNI, say foreign journalists can still go to Aceh, new regulations have stopped virtually all access for them to the province on Sumatra's northern tip.

The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club wrote to government ministers yesterday protesting at the mounting restrictions, which it said have "effectively banned many journalists from gaining access to Aceh and severely curtailed those who are allowed to travel there".

The director of information and media services for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Wahid Supriyadi, denied foreign journalists were banned from Aceh and blamed the lack of access on "some confusion" over new ministerial and presidential decrees designed to restrict foreign access to Aceh.

Only two journalists this month have been granted the new Foreign Affairs letters of recommendation journalists must have to travel to Aceh, the last issued on June 11.

Although the department says it needs three working days to issue these letters, the Herald has waited two weeks so far for an application to be granted, and at least 11 other media organisations are also waiting. Mr Supriyadi said he hoped approval would be granted early next week.

Any foreign journalists, or their Indonesian employees, who get to Aceh will be required to travel with soldiers or police when visiting villages where fighting takes place.

Two new decrees issued by Aceh's military commander, General Endang Suwarya, late on Thursday impose a host of such restrictions on all foreigners in Aceh, including a "ban on contacting members or sympathisers of GAM".

The Associated Press reported yesterday that police in the province had detained a Japanese photographer. An American freelance reporter, William Nessen, remains in detention in Banda Aceh, the province's capital, where he has been held for three days and questioned about alleged immigration offences and the six weeks he spent with GAM rebels.