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journalist group in Aceh has urged local police to investigate the attack against two journalists in East Aceh.

Ivo Lestari, an RCTI TV station contributor, and Yusri, a journalist from Harian Aceh, were reportedly assaulted by two men at a lumber mill in Teumpeum village, Peureulak district on Tuesday.

Ivo said that she and Yusri planned to run a story on illegal logging in the village as they heard from local residents that the lumber mill collected illegal logs.

Both journalists were accompanied by two residents.

Ivo tried to take pictures of piles of logs at the back of the mill when two men approached her and forced her to delete the pictures.

The men, Ivo said, later seized their cameras and press IDs before locking them up for around 30 minutes in a room. “They [the men] deleted all our pictures,” said Ivo.

Head of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) branch in Aceh, Maimun Saleh, urged the police to investigate the case.

“We cannot let this happen because such violence is in violation of Law No.40/1999 on press. The law stipulates that journalists have the right to cover stories and spread the information to the public,” Maimun said, adding that journalists, on the other hand, had to follow the code of ethics in covering stories.