Mob storms office of 'Nuansa Pos Palu' daily

Mob storms office of 'Nuansa Pos Palu' daily

Ruslan Sangadji, Palu, Central Sulawesi

A group of thugs claiming to be the relatives of local
businessman Erwin Sumampouw stormed the offices of the Nuansa Pos
Palu daily on Saturday, only a day after the newspaper ran an
article that the attackers claimed had defamed the businessman.

The attack came less than three weeks after an unidentified
mob attacked the office of the Sinar Indonesia Baru daily in
Medan on April 22.

The incident in Palu began when the daily published a story on
Friday on page sixteen alleging that the businessman, who is also
the chairman of a business association in the city, extorted a
backhander amounting to 16 percent of the value of a project from
a contractor. According to the story, the backhander was to be
paid to officials in the Palu administration to facilitate the
implementation of the project.

Erwin, the chairman of the Palu Business Association
(GAPENSI), was asked to comment on the story and these comments
were published on Saturday on the same page. In the afternoon,
however, some 40 thugs riding on public minibuses arrived at the
offices of the newspaper on Jl. Halmahera in East Palu. They
threatened the journalists and warned them not to publish any
further damaging stories on Erwin.

They also condemned the newspaper for what they said was its
defamation of Erwin, whom some members of the mob claimed was
their relative. They kicked over chairs and desks in the
building, and one of them assaulted Hanafi Saro, an editor of the
newspaper.

"One of them grabbed my collar. Fortunately, I remained calm
so that nothing worse happened," said Hanafi in his office on
Saturday, adding that some of the attackers were carrying
offensive weapons, including machetes.

The daily's editor-in-chief, Bayu Alexander, revealed that he
received a number of threatening phone calls on Friday night. "We
will file a complaint with the police," he said.

Jafar G. Bua, the chairman of Palu's Alliance of Independent
Journalists (AJI), criticized the use of violence in dealings
with the press, saying that this approach had to be combated.

Separately, Erwin denied that he had hired thugs to storm the
newspaper's offices.

"I wasn't necessary for me to ask them to attack the
newspaper. I availed of my right to reply and my response was
published on Saturday, and that's enough," he said.

He further claimed that he had no knowledge of who the people
claiming to be his relatives actually were.