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Police the biggest threat to journalists in 2015

Jakarta Globe - December 22, 2015

One year on, challenges remain for press in Indonesia – Committee to Protect Journalists. December 21, 2015
Pekanbaru police under fire for beating journalist – Jakarta Globe. December 6, 2015
AJI: Police target foreign journalists at Papuan student rally in Jakarta – Jakarta Globe. December 2, 2015
Attacks against journos on the rise – Jakarta Post. December 29, 2014
Violence against journalists condemned – Jakarta Post. November 15, 2014

Jakarta – The Indonesian police were responsible for a third of reported assaults against journalists throughout 2015, an advocacy group says.

The Legal Aid Institute for the Press, or LBH Pers, recorded 47 instances of violence against members of the media carrying out their jobs this year. In 17 of those cases, the police were the perpetrators, said LBH Pers research head Asep Komaruddin.

"Press attacks still occur because the perpetrators are never" brought to justice, Asep said in Jakarta on Tuesday as quoted by CNN Indonesia. "They can get away with it and others people will also do it."

Other perpetrators of attacks against the press included members of the public, regional legislators, businessmen and entertainers, LBH Pers said.

The group also identified Jakarta as the province with the highest number of assaults (eight out of 47), followed by the heavily policed Papua (five).

"It's such an irony because Jakarta is supposed to be the place that people look up to [in terms of press protection]," said LBH Pers executive director Nawawi Bahruddin. "But if so many cases happen here, what's it like in other regions?"

In one of the most high-profile cases, police beat a cameraman with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Archicco Guilianno, after he refused to erase footage of officers assaulting Papuan demonstrators in Jakarta on Dec. 1. Police also harassed other members of the foreign press, who were covering the demonstration marking the anniversary of a separatist movement in Papua.

Asep said another, lower-profile threat to journalists in Indonesia this year was layoffs, as several news outlets shuttered due to financial difficulty, including the Jurnal Nasional and Harian Bola daily newspapers, and Bloomberg TV Indonesia.

"If the journalists don't earn enough money, it interferes with the quality of the news they cover. Their rights should be protected in line with the workers' law," Asep said.

Source: http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/human-rights-news/police-biggest-threat-journalists-2015/.