The staff of a weekly magazine in Indonesia known for its investigative news is feeling uneasy and alarmed after a box containing six rats, with their heads decapitated, was thrown in front of its headquarters in Jakarta. 
Three days earlier, the severed head of a pig was sent to a political journalist with the magazine, Tempo, who is also the co-host of its political podcast ‘Bocor Alus’, says a South China Morning Post report.

The inherent message was palpable: the six decapitated rats being the six hosts of the publication’s podcast, while pigs and rats “are two animals that often symbolise rottenness and evil”.

Since its establishment in 1971, Tempo was banned twice by dictator Suharto in 1982 and 1994 for being critical of the regime. It resumed publication in 1998 after Suharto’s ouster.
The threats have sparked concerns over press freedoms and many believe such intimidation tactics could push journalists toward self-censorship.

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Tempo, one of Indonesia’s esteemed investigative news outlets, held a news briefing in which its editor-in-chief Setri Yasra said that the personal data of its political journalist Francisca Christy Rosana and her family was also published online.
“An anonymous account on Instagram made threats openly [against Rosana], with harsh language. We don’t know the person because the account is anonymous,” he said. The weekly described the incidents as acts of “terror”.

“Our office has been hit with Molotov cocktails, attacked by a group of people, and stormed by a mob offended by a caricature, but this is the first time a terrorist has used a piece of an animal carcass to scare. In addition to being cowardly, this is immoral because it creates fear by killing living creatures,” Tempo said in an editorial, adding that it remained undeterred.
The alleged intimidation was met by a wave of support for Tempo, including by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which called it “a dangerous and deliberate act”.

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“Tempo is well-known internationally for its fiercely independent reporting; using this playbook from autocrats elsewhere simply will not work. President Prabowo Subianto must uphold press freedom and condemn this highly provocative act if he wants Indonesia to be taken seriously as the world’s third-largest democracy,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator.

According to the Alliance of Independence Journalists, or AJI, intimidation and violence against journalists in Indonesia remained rampant in recent years, although the number of such reported cases fell to 73 last year, from 101 in 2023.

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“We see a tendency for people to no longer worry about being arrested for intimidating journalists, as well as for doxxing them. They can do that because impunity in Indonesia for violence against journalists is high,” Nany Afrida, chairwoman at AJI Indonesia, told This Week in Asia.

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Nany cited examples of extreme violence against Indonesian journalists, including the killing of Rico Sempurna Pasaribu and his three family members in a house fire in Medan last year. Rico had reported on a local gambling ring that was allegedly backed by military personnel.
In October, the headquarters of Jubi, a Papua-based news outlet, was pelted with Molotov bombs, and the case remained unresolved despite the incident being caught in security footage.

Meanwhile, the rights groups in Indonesia also fear that a new military law could curb press freedom in Indonesia over a clause stating that the military could be deployed to “assist in efforts to combat cyber threats.”