In a country like Indonesia where corruption is rife and lucrative, those who attempt to fight graft often face intimidation and violence. The home of one journalist in the ultra-conservative province of Aceh was recently burned down, and he and others suspect that his house was set on fire in retaliation for the reporter’s work covering several major corruption stories.
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The house in southeastern Aceh, belonging to Asnawi Liwi, a reporter for Aceh-based newspaper Serambi Indonesia, burned down early yesterday morning at around 2am.
Asnawi told the media that he suspected that his home had been targeted by arsonists because of stories he had reported on.
“We suspect that this fire has something to do with journalistic work, especially about cases of alleged corruption,” Asnawi said as quoted by Tempo.
Asnawi said mysterious individuals visited his house a few weeks ago while he was out of town and snooped around the house after asking his wife for his contact number.
The journalist, his wife and three children were in the home when the fire began in the house’s garage. Neighbors immediately shouted to alert them and fortunately all were able to escape safely from the burning building.
But all of their belongings in the house, including a car and motorcycle, were consumed by the flames.
Asnawi said that some local residents witnessed several unknown individuals leaving the scene coming from the direction of his house.
The journalist as well as the editor-in-chief of Serambi Indonesia, Arifin M Nur, called upon police to immediately investigate the case as a possible arson. Police are investigating but have not yet issued any statements on whether they think the fire might have deliberately been set on fire.
As reported by Tirto, Asnawi has covered several stories of alleged corruption, including those involving the construction of a toll road, a micro-hydro power plant and a mining company that has been accused of not paying taxes.
Asnawi said he regularly received threats, including ominous SMS messages sent to his phone by unknown parties, over the stories he’s covered.
The head the Banda Aceh chapter of the Independent Journalists Alliance (AJI), Misdarul Ihsan, also urged local police to thoroughly investigate the potential arson case as well as the other threats against Asnawi, which are in violation of Indonesian laws that are specifically meant to protect journalists from threats of intimidation and violence.
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