Journalists tell of recent riot brutality

Journalists tell of recent riot brutality

By Sirikit Syah & Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): Five local journalists found out last month that
journalism can sometimes be dangerous to one's health.

Jakarta-based photographers C. Sukma, Kemal Jufri and Firman
Wibowo as well as Surabaya-based reporter Adi Sutarwijono and
photographer M. Subeki were attacked during the recent flare-up
that erupted out of the leadership conflict in the minority
Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

They told The Jakarta Post how they were beaten up by soldiers
for no apparent reason.

Not all journalists suffered the same fate. One journalist
from Tiras weekly, Tatik Hafidz, described how several riot
police surrounded her to protect her when demonstrators started
hurling stones toward the troops. "Stay near us, mbak (sister),
you'll be safe, " one of the police, who had been on duty for
days, told Tatik.

Another female reporter was also protected from the storm of
stones by a police officer. "If you won't leave the area then at
least stay behind me, please," the policeman said. "I don't want
you to get hurt."

Yet another policeman shed a few tears when he was told to
start up an armored vehicle as the demonstrators became
increasingly violent in their stone-hurling. "This goes against
my heart," he told a reporter from the Merdeka daily. "I don't
know whether you realize this, but we cry, too."

But for five journalists, the rioting on July 27 and July 28
marked the peak of the political conflict.

Humiliation

Colleagues say Adi and Subeki now "look different". That's
because they had their heads shaven by the soldiers who arrested
them on July 28 in Surabaya. They were detained along with
numerous supporters of ousted PDI chief Megawati Soekarnoputri
during a local protest against the forced takeover of the PDI's
headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro in Jakarta the previous day.

"The men smashed my head on a wall at least two times," said
Adi of the Surabaya-based Surya daily.

Before the arrest, Adi and Subeki, from the Surabaya Post
daily, were among the several hundred protesters who were
marching along Jl. Diponegoro in Surabaya. "It's my habit to take
pictures from within a crowd because it usually produces better
pictures," Subeki said.

The soldiers that rounded up Subeki and Adi demanded that they
produce credentials. Subeki did not have any on him. Adi managed
to produce his from his bag, but in the process he also pulled
out several press releases from the Democratic People's Party.

Adi was then accused of being involved with the unrecognized
organization that now stands accused by the government of
communist-like activities and of masterminding the rioting. While
in military detention, both Adi and Subeki were beaten repeatedly
and suffered blows to their stomachs, faces and heads.

"I kept trying to explain who I was but they wouldn't listen,"
Adi said.

Of the five, Sukma -- from Ummat, an Islamic magazine --
probably fared the worst. He was beaten up so badly by troops
during the takeover in Jakarta that he needed to be hospitalized
for five days. The photographer was forced to delay his wedding
for a week.

On Saturday, July 27 -- the day when police and supporters of
government-backed PDI chairman Soerjadi stormed into the party
headquarters and took it over from Megawati's loyalists -- Sukma
saw a man lose consciousness after being hit repeatedly by a
group of riot police and soldiers.

He jumped over a railway fence to get a closer look and take
pictures. That's when the troops turned towards him and demanded
that he surrender his film. Sukma refused, explaining that he was
a journalist. The soldiers then seized his camera and started
beating him.

Sukma fell but kept trying to fend off the blows with his
hands. "Please don't hit me. I'm a journalist. I'm going to be
married in five days time," Sukma pleaded.

The blows kept coming until a police officer rescued him from
the ring of rabid soldiers and led him away to a fellow
photographer, Agus Butar Butar of Forum Keadilan magazine, who
then took him to Cikini Hospital.

Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Amir Syarifuddin paid Sukma
a visit not long after the rioting. Sukma has now recovered and
was married in Bandung, West Java, last week.

Firman, from the Bisnis Indonesia daily, said soldiers beat
him up on the same Saturday afternoon when he was trying to take
a picture of them dragging away a wounded man. One of the
soldiers demanded that Firman surrender his film.

"At first I tried to refuse. But then I sensed how bad the
situation was getting, so I agreed," Firman said. "I was trying
to roll up the negative when the soldiers, who probably lost
their patience, seized my camera and smashed it on the street.

"Then I became angry. My camera is my weapon, just like the
soldiers and their rifles," he said. "It was about then that the
soldiers, there were five of them, started to hit me on my head
and my back with metal pipes.

"I also felt a bayonet placed on my neck. I couldn't move. It
was then that a fellow journalist from Republika yelled out that
I was a reporter. They stopped hitting me then," said Firman, in
reference to the Jakarta-based daily.

"Another fellow journalist took me to the hospital at 12 p.m.
I had six stitches on my head. Even now my left hand is still
swollen," Firman said.

Kemal, a freelance photographer for Asiaweek magazine, had his
film seized by a group of men in red who claimed to be Soerjadi
supporters. "I had to give it up," he said. "There were too many
of them."

Around 2 p.m., when troops and police chased demonstrators
away with rattan sticks and canes from the party headquarters
towards the direction of Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Kemal got
separated from the other journalists.

In front of the Trisula elementary school in Central
Pegangsaan, Kemal saw a group of soldiers beating a man. "I was
the only journalist around. I realized that it would be too risky
for me to do anything," Kemal said.

"One of the soldiers saw me and demanded that I give him my
film. I was trying to roll it up when he grabbed my camera and
smashed it on the ground. They stepped on it and then threw it in
the canal nearby."

The troops then turned to Kemal. They kicked him in the groin
and hit him on the head. Another journalist, from Sinar weekly,
came up and tried to tell the soldiers that Kemal was a
journalist. He was also beaten.

"Praise Allah that a man wearing a white shirt came along and
rescued me from the troops. I don't know who he was, but he was
probably from the military as well," Kemal said.

Risk

Armed Forces Commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung said earlier that
the military never issued any order for its soldiers to mistreat
journalists. Legislator Aisyah Amini -- from House Commission I
for foreign affairs, defense and information -- said on July 31
that what happened to the journalists was a risk they should have
been prepared for.

"I realize the risks of working as a journalist, but I'm angry
all the same," Firman said. "I guess it will still be a long time
before journalists are respected here."

Kemal echoed the sentiment. "Before the incident, I thought I
was pretty safe because as a journalist I wasn't involved in the
conflict," he said. "What happened to me was not about risk. What
happened to me was intentional."