Peter Morgan and Keith Loveard, Jakarta – Muhammad Syafruddin was beaten to death with an iron bar outside his house in Jogjakarta on August 13, 1996. Police say he was killed by his lover's jealous husband. They made no connection between the murder and an article that the 33-year-old journalist had recently published in Bernas which claimed that local officials had siphoned off aid meant for Indonesia's poor.
About a year later, reporter Muhammad Sayuti Bochari was found lying unconscious on a road outside of Ujung Pandang in South Sulawesi. He later died in the hospital. Witnesses say he looked as if he had been beaten, but police maintain he fell off his motorcycle as he swerved to avoid a truck. Two days earlier his article in the Pos Makassar had charged local government workers with embezzling development funds meant for impoverished villages.
Naimullah, 42, a reporter for Sinar Pagi, was found dead in the back seat of his car in West Kalimantan last month. He had stab wounds in his neck and bruises on his temple, wrists and chest. Four men were seen running from the scene. Police have called his death a traffic accident. They see no link between it and a recent story of his that exposed a timber-smuggling racket in the province.
Morbid coincidence or a deadly form of media censorship? The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists believes that Syafruddin was killed because of his expose. The committee blames the Indonesian government for its hostility toward independent media. "If the government treats critical journalists like enemies, it makes sense that thugs at any level feel free to do the same," says A. Lin Neumann, the committee's Asia expert.
The violence has not silenced the country's press. The Indonesian Journalists' Association (PWI) has condemned the police responses to the deaths, particularly those of Naimullah and Syafruddin. For the first time, the PWI has launched its own investigations. Some reports have already tied Syafruddin's beating to corrupt local officials.
The police have their own suspect. They allege that Dwi Sumaji killed Syafruddin when he discovered the reporter was having an affair with his wife. But when Sumaji took the stand Aug. 5 he claimed the police had bribed him to take the blame. "I have been sacrificed to protect a political mafia," he told the court.
Meanwhile, the PWI has published Udin's Blood, a collection of the reporter's stories. "It reveals that he was a fighter," says Parni Hadi, head of the association. If Syafruddin's death was a result of his reporting, then the journalists' fight is much more bloody than it should be.