Swiss journalist heads home at last
Swiss journalist heads home at last
JAKARTA (AFP): A Swiss journalist was bound for home Saturday after a 10-day ordeal in a mosquito-infested Indonesian jail where he faced the threat of a five-year jail term for working while on a tourist visa.
Oswald Iten, 50, a reporter for the Zurich-based Neue Zuericher Zeitung, was relaxing at the Swiss embassy in Jakarta Saturday afternoon, accompanied by immigration police who would escort him to his flight to Zurich.
"He is quite well and happy to be out," the newspaper's Asia editor Beat Wieser, told AFP by phone from the embassy.
Wieser said Iten, who flew into Jakarta from the remote province of Irian Jaya under police escort earlier in the day, was in good health, and had "no more problems."
No restrictions had been placed on him by Indonesian authorities, who had said they would be happy to see him back -- but with a journalist's visa.
"So you can't really call this a deportation ... It is one of the amazing things that can happen in this country," Wieser added.
Days earlier Iten had been in a police lockup in Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya, where he shared a toiletless cell with 28 other men. Police there told him he was facing trial and a five- year jail term.
Arrested on Dec. 2 for taking photographs and notes during anniversary celebrations by pro-independence Papuan separatists, he was put in the same jail as five members of the separatist movement, including their leader Theys Eluay.
Subversion
Iten was released on Wednesday. The separatists, arrested a week before Iten, have been charged by police with subversion for advocating the province's secession from Indonesia.
An American national was also deported from Irian Jaya two months ago after he was seen taking photographs in the town of Wamena in the aftermath of a riot which left up to 30 people dead.
Irian Jaya has seen a series of outbreaks of violence linked to a stepped-up pro-independence campaign there in the past weeks in which at least 18 people have died.
Pro-independence sentiments have been on the rise in the province, especially since East Timor was allowed to separate from Indonesia after a UN-held ballot there in August 1999.
Deputy chairman of the Papuan Presidium Council Thom Beanal claimed that Irianese were ready to secede from the Republic of Indonesia and run a modern government.
"We are ready but have not been given the chance yet," Thom once said, recalling that in 1961, even when Irianese had nothing, they were also prepared for independence. Now, with a lot of educated people, Irianese were even more ready (for independence).
However, the Indonesian government maintained that unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia was final.