ALERT - INDONESIA

25 January 2005

American journalist deported from Indonesia

SOURCE: Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Bangkok

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Indonesian officials have deported an American journalist for having allegedly defied an earlier ban on his entry into the country.

Freelance journalist William Arthur Nessen, whose articles on Aceh have appeared in the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "Sydney Morning Herald", was ordered to leave the country on 24 January 2005, after being detained for one day. Nessen was held by immigration officials after he visited the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh, the Associated Press reported.

He reportedly arrived there on 3 January. Nessen entered Indonesia on the strength of a visa granted by immigration authorities. Indonesian officials said, however, the granting of the visa was a mistake, as an exclusion order on Nessen was issued in 2003. There had apparently been some confusion as to the expiry date on the exclusion order, and immigration officials clarified that Nessen should in fact be barred from Indonesia until August of this year.

BACKGROUND:
The journalist was imprisoned in Indonesia in 2003 after he spent three weeks with separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (see IFEX alerts of 5 August, 23, 18 and 4 July, 27, 25, 24 and 10 June 2003). Jakarta frowns upon foreign coverage of the insurgency in Aceh and had banned journalists from the province for two years (see alerts of 26 November, 8 October, 5 August, 23, 18, 17, 8, 4, 3 and 2 July, 30 and 27 June 2003, and others).

Only the devastating tsunami that hit on 26 December 2004 compelled Jakarta to let journalists enter the country with international troops and aid workers. In recent weeks, however, Jakarta has been showing impatience with the situation and has been warning foreigners to leave the province, ostensibly because the ongoing insurgency poses a security threat that the Indonesian military could not mitigate (see alerts of 14 and 13 January 2005).