Anton Nilsson – The suspected killing by fire of an Indonesian journalist last month is just the latest case of reporters in the country being intimidated for their work, journalists and researchers tell Crikey.
Rico Sempurna Pasaribu, a journalist for Tribrata TV, died along with his wife, a child and a grandchild in a blaze at his home in the city of Kabanjahe, in North Sumatra, on June 27.
Pasaribu, 40, had been receiving threats after reporting on an illegal gambling den allegedly operated by a local army officer, the non-profit Reporters Without Borders wrote in a media release earlier this week.
According to the news website Benar News, police have arrested two men suspected of setting the fire.
"Today we arrested the executors and we are working on identifying individuals connected to them. We have identified those who have interacted with these perpetrators," a regional military commander told reporters, according to Benar News.
Revolusi Riza, a CNN Indonesia journalist who was formerly the general secretary of Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), said the incident "adds to a long line of cases of violence against journalists".
"Indonesia still has problems regarding the protection of journalists," Riza told Crikey. "There are still many cases of violence against journalists in Indonesia that have not been fully handled legally. In fact, there are still nine cases of journalist murders where the killer has not been revealed."A return to bad old days
Kidnapping, "disappearing" and intimidating journalists used to be common during the military dictatorship of former leader Suharto in Indonesia, a country of 275 million residents that is Australia's closest neighbour and that began transitioning to democracy in 1998, one analyst said.
"What's happening in Indonesia at the moment is a troubling resurgence of a culture of media repression and censorship," RMIT lecturer and journalist Tito Ambyo told Crikey.
"Figures who held power prior to the reformasi [reform] era that began in 1998 seem to have been emboldened by the election of [president-elect] Prabowo Subianto and the apparent erosion of democratic norms.
"One thing we often forget is that democracy and media freedom in Indonesia are still relatively young – there were improvements after 1998, but if you look at the reality of being an investigative journalist in Indonesia right now, I worry that all the results of political reforms are being erased and those patterns are coming back."
The AJI documented 89 attacks against Indonesian journalists in 2023 alone. That was the highest number in the past decade, the organisation said, noting physical assaults, online harassment, criminalisation and sexual violence were among the types of intimidation used.
Out of those cases, 33 attacks came after reporting on corruption, 25 after reporting on social issues and crime, and 14 after reports on environmental issues and agrarian conflict.
"In addition to the high number of attacks, the mainstream media in Indonesia is still controlled by elite groups from political parties and ruling power ... the media industry continues to be shaken by digital disruption, which has led to the demise of two print media companies and layoffs at nine television and online media companies," the AJI said.
Regional reporters cop 'backlash'
Muhammad Beni Saputra, an Australian National University PhD student researching media and politics in Indonesia, said regional journalists tended to face more intimidation and violence than reporters at national outlets.
"Local media is more controlled than national media, and the environment is really bad for journalists – the Pasaribu case has gone viral and there's a lot of attention being paid to it, but there are a lot of other cases in the local media landscape that don't get national attention," he told Crikey.
Saputra said critical coverage of government, police and military figures, and of the rich, "tends to backfire" on journalists. Regional journalists often lack the support of more established, national outlets, and those reporters sometimes operate in an environment where there's neither protection from employers nor a strict adherence to journalistic ethics and standards, according to Saputra: "That becomes a loophole for the rulers to [use to] intimidate journalists."
'Criminal syndicates often operate with impunity'
ANU senior lecturer Ross Tapsell, who specialises in Southeast Asian media studies, said it was "very difficult" for Indonesian journalists to report critically on issues involving the military and other powerful officials: "Sadly, in more remote areas of Indonesia, officials and criminal syndicates often operate with impunity, and local journalists face real threats if they report such activities."
University of Melbourne Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society Professor Tim Lindsey echoed that point.
"Many forms of organised criminal activity in Indonesia are operated by gangs known as preman, and these gangs are typically closely linked to police or military figures, who are often in rivalry of control of local criminal activities," he told Crikey. "Journalists who expose criminal activities can therefore also expose themselves to backlash from local law enforcement figures protecting their criminal activities."
Reporters Without Borders ranked Indonesia 111th out of 180 in its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, noting the country "guarantees freedom of the press in principle in its legislation" while "the immensity and diversity of the country make respect for press freedom a daily battle".
[Anton Nilsson is Crikey's federal political reporter. He previously covered NSW Parliament for NCA NewsWire, and before that, worked for Sweden's Expressen newspaper as well as other publications in Sweden, Australia and the United States.]
Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/07/11/indonesia-arson-attack-journalists-rico-sempurna-pasarib