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