Activists have called for press freedom to be protected in Indonesia and demanded an investigation after a magazine critical of the government was sent a pig’s head and decapitated rats.
Weekly magazine Tempo, a top Indonesian publication since the 1970s, has been critical of the policies of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general whom rights groups accuse of abuses under late dictator Suharto.
Cleaners at Tempo’s office on Saturday found a box of six rats with their heads cut off, the magazine said in a statement.
Photo: Bloomberg
A pig’s head without its ears was also found on Thursday, intended for delivery to a reporter.
“This is a dangerous and deliberate act of intimidation,” Beh Lih Yi, head of the Asia program at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said late on Saturday. “Journalists in Indonesia must be able to do their work freely and safely without fear of retaliation.”
Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said an investigation must be opened, adding that there was a risk that being a journalist in Indonesia would become “like a death sentence.”
Tempo editor-in-chief Setri Yasra said the deliveries sought to undermine the publication’s work, but added it would remain committed to its mission.
“If the intention is to scare, we are not deterred, but stop this cowardly act,” Setri said in a statement.
There was no indication who sent the items, but presidential spokesman Hasan Nasbi played down the incident, telling reporters on Friday that the magazine should “just cook” the pig’s head, Indonesian media reported.
He later clarified his remark, telling news site Kompas on Saturday that press freedom must be upheld and such acts taken “seriously.”
He did not respond to a request for comment.
Setri reported the first package to police and officers visited the magazine’s office after the second package was delivered.
The magazine in the past few recent weeks has published stories criticizing Prabowo’s policies, including widespread budget cuts that stoked protests last month.
Tempo was banned twice — lastly in 1994 — under Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades. It resumed publication after his downfall in the late 1990s.
Prabowo was once married to Suharto’s daughter and is accused of ordering the disappearance of democracy activists near the end of his rule, which he denies.
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
‘INCREDIBLY TROUBLESOME’: Hours after a judge questioned the legality of invoking a wartime power to deport immigrants, the president denied signing the proclamation The US on Friday said it was terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, giving them weeks to leave the country. US President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations. The order affects about 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the US under a scheme launched in October 2022 by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, and expanded in January the following year. They would lose their legal protection 30 days after the US Department of Homeland Security’s order is published in the Federal
RSS