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."