OPINION: Julia Suryakusuma, the author of Julia’s Jihad, tries to untangle the contradictions of press freedom in Indonesia with the unrelenting stranglehold on West Papua amid controversy over the continuing detention of two French journalists.
JAKARTA (Jakarta Post / Pacific Media Watch): When you are a journalist, you know that following your journalistic instincts sometimes means big trouble.
That’s why a slew of films have been made on this topic, including: The Killing Fields (1984) a drama about the civil war in Cambodia; The China Syndrome (1979), an American thriller about the dangers of nuclear power; and Veronica Guerin, a 2003 biographical Irish film about the drug trade in Dublin.
These three films were all based on true stories.
The characters of Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson), Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda), Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) and the eponymous character of Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett), all risked their lives in their pursuit of the truth — the ultimate aim of investigative journalism. For that Guerin also paid the ultimate price: She was murdered in 1996.
I reckon a film entitled Live from Papua could also be made about the two French journalists, Valentine Bourrat and Thomas Dandois, who have been detained in Papua since August 6 this year. They were arrested while filming the conditions in which the local population lives.
The trouble was, they were there on tourist visas.
So when the authorities caught them not long after they arrived, it would have been pretty easy to hit them with immigration violations and deport them.
A clear-cut case, huh?
So how come two months later they are still being detained, especially after they admitted they were working without press visas and have apologised? It turns out that because Bourrat and Dandois had contacted local pro-independence activists, seeking to film their demands, they are facing the possibility of subversion charges.
If brought to trial, they could face up to five years in jail and a fine of up to Rp 500 million (US$41,000). Heavy stuff.
Abridged - read the full article here
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