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French reporters jailed in Indonesia to fly home next week

Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat, held since August, were given two-and-a-half month jail terms for entering West Papua on tourist visas.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

Two French journalists have been sentenced to two months and 15 days imprisonment in an Indonesian jail for reporting in the West Papua province while on a tourist visa, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

The sentence means Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat will be out of prison and free to return to France next week.

Bourrat's mother, who had pleaded for her daughter's release, said from Paris it was "very good news".

But their lawyer, Aristo M.A. Pangaribuan, said there was no room for celebration because "the sentence still criminalises journalistic work".

He said a priority for Indonesia's new president Joko Widodo should be to ease restrictions on foreign reporting in the two Papuan provinces, Indonesia's easternmost and among its poorest regions.

"If the new government really wants to start development in Papua, then it should be transparent about what they are doing in Papua by letting in foreign journalists," Mr Aristo said. "Otherwise it's just rhetoric."

Mr Joko had, during the presidential election campaign, indicated that he may ease restrictions.

Mr Aristo argued to the court that the French pair were not actually carrying out journalistic work, and were only conducting research.

Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said the sentence was a "big relief" and that "any other outcome would have set a terrible precedent for media freedom in Indonesia". 

Under international legal principles - which endorse reporting without valid visas where the legal regime is too restrictive - they had committed no offence.

Mr Deloire said Indonesia's low ranking in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, 132nd out of 180 countries, is due in part to the lack of transparency and restrictions on reporting in Papua.

The two reporters were caught by police in the highlands capital of Wamena on August 5 while filming a documentary for Franco-German TV station Arte on the West Papuan separatist movement — a notoriously touchy subject for the Indonesian state.

For reporting from the province, authorities require a journalist visa and a special permission letter, both of which are difficult to get. 

Even so, most reporters caught with tourist visas are simply deported. 

Read more of this report from The Sydney Morning Herald.