Reporters take officials hostage

Reporters take officials hostage

The Secretary of the Tangerang branch of the Indonesian Council
of Ulemas, Rasna Dachlan, and two officials from the regency's
social affairs agency, Saroji and Achmad, were kept hostage for
about six hours in a car by a group of men claiming to be
reporters for local magazines.

"I was kept hostage inside my car by about 60 magazine
reporters. They wouldn't let me get out of the car until I gave
them money," Rasna was quoted by Antara as saying in Tangerang on
Wednesday.

He said that the incident occurred after he attended a
ceremony marking the revelation of the Koran (Nuzulul Qur'an) on
Tuesday night in the Tangerang administration offices, at which
Tangerang Regent Agus Djunara and Banten Governor Djoko Munandar
were also present.

The incident started at 10 p.m. on Tuesday and ended at 3 a.m.
on Wednesday morning.

According to Rasna, the "journalists" forced him and the other
two officials to pay money to them before they would allow the
trio to leave.

Achmad had at first tried to offer them Rp 500,000 (US$60) of
his own money but they refused, saying that it was not enough for
60 of them.

Rasna said that he had asked security guards to deal with the
problem, but as there were only three of them on duty they were
unable to do anything.

Tangerang's public relations chief, Maman Soetoyo, regretted
the incident, saying that he doubted that those involved were
real reporters. "They work for magazines that have no clear
status. I think if they were really journalists, they wouldn't do
such a thing," he said.

Many con artists or extortionists in the city claim to work as
journalists for publications whose actual existence is uncertain,
or even for publications that have closed down. Their primary
goal is blackmail, especially of government officials, by
threatening to publish damaging stories. --JP