JAKARTA – National news magazine Tempo has received another anonymous package containing animal carcasses in what appears to be an effort to intimidate the outlet’s journalists for its reporting, raising concerns over shrinking civic space and freedom of speech in the country.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, an unidentified person on a motorcycle rode past the Tempo office in Palmerah, South Jakarta and threw a box at the office’s premises. Security guards opened the box, wrapped with rose-adorned gift paper, and found the carcasses of six decapitated rats inside.

The incident took place just days after another anonymous package, containing a decomposing and decapitated pig’s head with its ears cut off, was sent to the magazine’s political journalist Francisca Christy Rosana.

Francisca, along with journalist Hussein Abri Dongoran and several other Tempo journalists, has hosted the “Bocor Alus Politik” podcast since 2023, a program that has garnered acclaim for its deep insights into current events.

Tempo is one of the country’s most recognized press institutions thanks to its courage in defending civil liberties. The outlet has been reporting on the deliberations for a revision of the 2004 Indonesian Military (TNI) Law, which critics have said could potentially bring in a resurgence of the armed forces’ dominant role in civilian affairs. The revision was passed at a House of Representatives plenary session on Thursday.

Tempo editor-in-chief Setri Yasra said that the publication quickly responded to the incidents by filing a report with the police on Friday. The report was updated on Saturday with evidence from the package containing the rat carcasses.

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The magazine saw the recent incidents as far from isolated, given that numerous other Tempo journalists have been facing online doxing and intimidation. Hussein had also faced intimidation when unidentified motorists broke his car window in August and September last year.

“These [incidents are] clearly structured. They were intimidation attempts to discourage Tempo from doing its journalistic work,” Setri said in an online press briefing on Sunday.

“My biggest worry is that these incidents would [also intimidate] other media workers into self-censorship.”

Escalating attacks

Recent incidents against Tempo have shown that intimidation attempts against journalists are getting more serious, according to Nany Afrida of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), who blamed the escalation on authorities allowing the majority of perpetrators to go unpunished by not properly following up on police complaints regarding prior incidents.

“There is a growing culture of impunity, with only a few complaints ending up in court. And even in such cases, the punishment is usually light and only for the executors rather than the mastermind,” she said.

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Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) executive director Mustafa Layong called on the government and the police to show commitment to support free press by thoroughly investigating the alleged intimidation attempts against Tempo.

“However, what we see so far is that the government [has] responded by downplaying the incidents. It is as if [the government] doesn’t care for the safety of its citizens; in this case, the journalists,” Mustafa said at Sunday’s press briefing.

He referred to a comment made by Presidential Communications Office chief Hasan Nasbi on Friday, who said in response to reporters’ questions regarding his thoughts on the incident that Francisca “should just cook” the pig head.

Hasan’s response was met with widespread public backlash. He later clarified on Saturday that his response was geared to belittle the sender of the carcass rather than making light of journalists’ safety.

“If [Francisca] had really cooked it, the perpetrator would have banged his head. They would think that they had failed [terrorizing the journalists],” the presidential spokesperson said, as quoted by kompas.com.

After the pig head incident, National Police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo said that he had instructed Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) chief Comr. Gen. Wahyu Widada to investigate the reports filed by Tempo.

“We will give the best service we can to follow up on the report,” Listyo said after an event in Medan, North Sumatra on Friday.

Asia News Network/The Jakarta Post