L

ast year saw more journalists become victims of violence and various other forms of abuse and disruption when doing their jobs, reports the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).

In the report, released on Tuesday to coincide with the National Press Day, AJI reveals that cases of violence against journalists increased to 46 in 2015 from 40 and 39 in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

'€œWe found out that the situation faced by Indonesian journalists is growing more critical as levels of violence have worsened in the past three years,'€ AJI chairman Suwarjono told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Suwarjono said that the election of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, the first democratically elected civilian President in the post-Soeharto era, had failed to make a difference.

Worsening violence against journalists, he claims, shows that the state is failing to protect journalists as they carry out their jobs.

'€œWe are concerned about this because according to the 1999 Press Law, journalists should be given protection,'€ Suwarjono said.

Based on data from AJI, police were responsible for 14 cases of violence against journalists.

'€œWe observed that more police are being violent toward journalists. We had 6 cases in 2014 and that number more than doubled in 2015,'€ Suwarjono said.

He said that the culture of impunity within the police force was the reason for the spike.

'€œThe police institution never imposes punishments on their personnel,'€ he said.

Asep Komaruddin from the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) said that his institution recorded the same trend, where most cases of violence against journalists went unpunished.

'€œBased on our data, from 2008 until today, no case of violence against a journalist has been tried or processed legally,'€ Asep said.

The attacks against journalists have included beatings, intimidation and the destruction of journalists'€™ equipment.

The disturbing trend has also affected foreign reporters assigned to work in Indonesia.

Late last year, during a Papuan Students Alliance (AMP) rally at Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle, journalist Archicco Guiliano from ABC Australia, Step Vaessen from Al-Jazeera and Chris Brummitt from Bloomberg were stopped by police officers and ordered to delete pictures they had taken.

Based on an investigation by LBH Pers, Archicco Guiliano was taking pictures of the chaos and was positioned in front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Officers approach him and told him to delete his photos. He refused and was reportedly hit by the officers. Step Vaessen witnessed the incident and photographed it on his cell phone. Police officers then approached him and asked him to erase his photos. When he refused, the police reportedly grabbed his phone and did it for him.

Article 18 of Law No. 40/ 1999 on the press stipulates that anyone who intentionally prevents journalists from doing their jobs can face a two-year prison term or be fined Rp 500 million.

The National Police did not return a call from the Post when asked for their response to the allegations.

Besides physical violence, LBH Pers noted several other problems that affected the work of journalists.

'€œWe found that during 2015 there were some regulations made that threatened the freedom of the press or freedom of expression,'€ Asep said.

He expected that more regulations were being drafted this year to further limit the press'€™s freedom.

He said that the press'€™s freedom would most likely continue to decline once the regulations were passed.
______________________________________