Published on 31 December 2003
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Ersa Siregar, was held hostage by rebels during six months, before being killed in a clash between his captors and soldiers in Aceh Province, in the north of Sumatra island on 29 December.
Siregar, a reporter for the private television channel a , was found dead after an exchange of fire in the east of the province between the Indonesian military and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The separatists had held the journalist and two members of his crew hostage since June.
The 52-year-old journalist had worked for RCTI television since 1993. He was taken hostage on 29 June, with his cameraman Fery Santoro and their driver in the Peureulak district of Aceh, by rebels who accused them of "spying". Since then a number of Indonesian journalists and human rights organisations had attempted to bring the hostage crisis to an end. On 4 November, around 100 journalists demonstrated in front of the political affairs and security ministry in Jakarta demanding that everything possible be done to obtain their release.
Scores of Chinese journalists, bloggers and human rights activists were arrested, put under house arrested or expelled from Beijing before and during the Olympic Games. The Games have now finished and we call for their release !
