Press council chief Bagir Manan asked the police to pay serious attention to investigating the assault of a Tempo TV journalist last week.

"The police should not hesitate in investigating the case. We will fully back them up on this," Bagir said on Tuesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Tempo TV program manager Nur Hidayat, however, asked the council to press the police on the matter, as he claimed that he had not seen serious indications that the police were serious in pursuing the investigation.

"The police had earlier stated that nothing happened to our reporter. They said she fell while trying to shoot a few final pictures," Hidayat said. Bagir said this explanation was unacceptable because evidence showed that she had been beaten about the back.

Tempo TV journalist Syarifah Nur Aida was found unconscious last week while she was shooting footage at the location of a dispute between local residents and the Air Force near the Atang Senjaya Air Base in Bogor, West Java. Syarifah was rushed to the hospital by her colleagues.