An Indonesian journalist has sustained minor injuries to his arm after being beaten by a police officer in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, on Wednesday.
Policeman Bustam M beat Publik newspaper reporter Awaluddin DP with a rattan stick as he was taking photos of a motorcycle racing on a temporary track in from of the West Sulawesi governor's office.
Awaluddin said the officer was trying to disperse spectators from a dangerous zone. "If I did not ward off Bustam M, my face would have got hurt."
Indonesian journalists remain vulnerable to acts of physical violence despite the governments support of press freedom. In the most recent attack, The Jakarta Globe contributor in Papua, Banjir Ambarita, was stabbed by two unknown assailants in Jayapura on Wednesday night.
Banjir on Thursday was being monitored in intensive care after his surgery, as police begin their investigation into his attack.
On Tuesday, Poso Police arrested three men for alleged attacks on a journalist. Central Sulawesi police spokesman Commissioner Rostin Tumaloto only identified the suspects as An, Al, and Sn.
The three Poso Kota subdistrict residents are among six people suspect of attacking Media Alkhairaat journalist Subandi at Sintuvu Maroso University on Tuesday at 1 p.m. local time, Rostin said.
The Indonesian Press Council recorded 25 cases of violence against journalists during 2010 – including acts of intimidation, destruction of reporting equipment, destruction to media offices and assault. Three Indonesian journalists were murdered last year.
On Aug 21, Ridwan Salamun, a reporter for the Ambon-based newspaper Ambon Express and a contributor for the Jakarta-based SUN TV and RCTI, was hacked to death during a clash between two villages in Southeast Maluku.
The head of Kompas newspaper's Kalimantan bureau, Muhammad Syaifullah, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in his house in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, on July 26. Some journalists believe Syaifullah could have been killed because of his reports on sensitive environmental issues.
That killing followed the July 30 death of Ardiansyah Matra'is, a Papuan reporter with Merauke TV whose body was found in the Gudang Arang River in Merauke two days after he had been reported missing. (Antara, AP, JG)