J

an. 20, p5

The Cilacap Immigration Office in Central Java has arrested two foreign journalists for allegedly misusing their tourist visas and failing to produce permits to cover the executions of death-row inmates on Nusakambangan Island.

'€œThe two foreign nationals are undergoing questioning at the Cilacap Immigration Office,'€ Cilacap Immigration Office communication and information officer Adithia Perdana said in Cilacap on Monday.

Your comments:

As one of the foreign journalists in question, it did indeed feel like harassment.

In 17 years of covering this country, that was the first time I was met by immigration while covering a story.

To me it was a blatant and small-minded attempt to stop foreign coverage of the event. Someone obviously made a decision to send personnel to the location with the express intent of detaining anyone without a press visa.

Considering the fact that the majority of those to be executed were foreigners, it is hardly surprising that foreign press would want to cover it.

And with the average waiting time for a press visa application to be approved standing at six weeks, it is also not surprising that journalists were sent without one.

That the powers that be would recognize this '€” and instead of facilitating the visiting journalists in their legitimate and reasonable desire to report on the executions of their nationals at very short notice '€” they sent a team specifically to try and catch anyone who didn'€™t have a press visa. Why?

It is because it was a '€œnegative'€ story. Small-minded at best.

No such immigration checks were carried out on the large number of visiting journalists who arrived to cover the AirAsia crash, none of whom would obviously have had the required six weeks to obtain a press visa.

Actually, I need to amend one thing: it is not strictly true that we haven'€™t experienced such behavior in the last 17 years.

It was par for the course when Soeharto was president, but not since '€” until recently. It is a worrying trend.

TV guy