Ulma Haryanto & Anita Rachman – The latest annual survey by a global media watchdog found that no journalists were killed in Indonesia last year, but identified a worryingly high number of attacks against those reporting on regional corruption.
The report, "Attacks on the Press," published earlier this week by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said there were no work-related deaths among Indonesian reporters in 2011, a marked improvement from 2010 when three reporters were killed. However, the group noted that the Indonesian media remained under threat, "particularly in remote areas."
It cited several attacks on journalists that remain unresolved, including the stabbing of Banjir Ambarita, a contributor to the Jakarta Globe, in March last year shortly after he had written an article linking the police in Papua to a prisoner sex abuse scandal. There have been no arrests in the case.
"CPJ research shows that corruption was an extremely dangerous beat for reporters," the report said. It noted that since 1992, 75 percent of attacks were against Indonesian reporters covering corruption stories. By contrast, the next riskiest beat, politics, accounted for just 38 percent.
The CPJ also noted that of the eight reporters killed in Indonesia in the past 20 years, all had died outside Jakarta.
The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), which puts the number of reporters killed during the same period at 11, agreed that regional reporters covering the corruption beat faced greater risks in the reform era.
"We want journalists to be more careful, especially those who cover remote areas," AJI chairman Eko Maryadi said. "Those [journalists] who want to uncover corruption, the embezzlement of taxes and public funds, have made regional officials uncomfortable."
He added that the safety of journalists had become a new focus for the AJI. "We want to organize training for reporters, especially for those who are out of the central government's reach, and provide them with legal assistance," Eko said.
The prospects for press safety this year look grim, with one of the country's leading antigraft watchdogs warning that the number of corruption cases will increase in the run-up to the 2014 general elections.
"Political parties will work hard to get money to fund their campaigns, and they will use every means available," Danang Widoyoko, national coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said recently when presenting the group's 2012 graft outlook.
Already this year a reporter has died while covering a corruption case. Darma Sahlan, 43, a reporter for the weekly Monitor magazine, was found dead in a ditch in the village of Lawe Dua in Southeast Aceh district earlier this month.
Authorities have not yet determined the cause of death, but the Aceh Journalists Association (PWA) says it believes Darma was murdered for his report on allegations of embezzlement involving the district branch of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI).
Bambang Harymurti, the deputy chairman of the Press Council, agreed that the threat to reporters covering graft in the regions was greater than the threat faced by those on a similar beat in Java. "Those who report from outside Java have to be braver when covering corruption," he said.
The Press Council, he added, had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Police that covers the police's commitment to guaranteeing the safety of journalists.
According to the Legal Aid Foundation for the Press (LBH Pers), police officers and military members were responsible for 22 of 96 acts of violence against reporters last year.