Press shackled in wartime Indonesia

Indonesia restricted access to Aceh province for foreign reporters and banned local journalists from working for international media in the war-ravaged region, which will force news organizations to rely more heavily on official military statements in their coverage.

Reports by local and foreign media alleging rights abuses by Indonesian soldiers have angered the military since it began a fresh offensive against separatist rebels in the province on May 19. More than 350 people have been killed.

The new rules, announced late Thursday in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, also restrict access for foreign aid workers trying to deal with the humanitarian effects of the conflict.

The regulations restrict travel for foreign reporters to the region's cities and major towns. Correspondents, who must first obtain permission from Jakarta to travel to Aceh, are also required to report their movements to military commanders in every place they visit.

Local correspondents are also banned from reporting for foreign media, according to the regulations. Those who violate the laws will be prosecuted.

Just hours after the new restrictions were announced, soldiers detained a Japanese freelance photographer, Tadatomo Takagi, for allegedly working in Aceh without permission.

Takagi, 25, was arrested in the north of the province late Thursday, military spokesman Lieutenatn Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki said.

In recent weeks, foreign media watchdogs have urged the government not to restrict journalists in the province, where both the rebels and the military have been accused of extra-judicial killings and other rights abuses.

The restriction on reporters entering villages will effectively mean that correspondents will be unable to report on the war firsthand, and have to rely on military statements that in the past have contradicted accounts by villagers quoted by journalists.

Aceh has been under martial law since the campaign began.

Police have charged an American traveling on a journalist visa with immigration violations after he lived with the rebels for a month. They are considering charging him with supporting the outlawed Free Aceh Movement.

Indonesia has one of the freest media in Southeast Asia, but the military has always hampered local and foreign reporters from working in the country's many trouble spots.

The new laws prevent foreign aid workers from having "direct contact" with the Acehnese people and stop them speaking to the press. The military often accuses humanitarian workers of being pro-separatist.

The Free Aceh Movement has been fighting for an independent homeland on the northern tip of Sumatra island since 1976. More than 12,000 people have been killed in what observers have called one of the dirtiest wars in Southeast Asia.