 |
| Papua's "Morning Star" Flag (Wiki Info) |
By Phelim Kine
The arrest of two French journalists is part of a decades-old policy of preventing foreign media scrutiny.
French reporters Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat have spent the past two weeks in a police jail cell on Indonesia’s island of Papua.
The two journalists, who domestic media have reported were producing a documentary on the restive province for Franco-German Arte TV, are just the latest victims of the Indonesian government’s Papua censorship obsession.
Police arrested the pair on August 6 on charges of “working illegally” without official media accreditation. But things may be about to get a lot worse for them. On August 14, the Papua police spokesman, Sulistyo Pudjo, suggested that the two journalists may face “subversion” charges for allegedly filming members of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM).
Dandois and Bourrat ran afoul of the Indonesian government’s decades-old policy of preventing foreign media scrutiny of Papua. That policy makes it nearly impossible for journalists to report freely from the province. Obstructions to foreign media access include requiring foreign reporters to get special official permission to visit the island. The government rarely approves these applications or else delays processing, hampering efforts by journalists and independent groups to report on breaking news events. Journalists who do get official permission are invariably shadowed by official minders, who strictly control their movements and access to interviewees.
Read the full story at The Diplomat