Five Student Journalists Arrested While Covering Sexual Harassment Protest at Hasanuddin University Makassar

MAKASSAR, RAKYAT NEWS – In a disturbing turn of events, five student journalists from Catatan Kaki (Caka), the student press organization at Universitas Hasanuddin (Unhas) Makassar of Indonesia , were arrested by police on November 28, 2024.

The journalists were covering a protest at the university’s Faculty of Cultural Sciences (FIB) that demanded action in response to a sexual harassment case involving a faculty member. The five detained individuals were identified as Nisa, Erik, Fajar, Unding, Hanan.

The protest had started at 3:00 PM and lasted until around 6:00 PM. It was organized by students who called for the dismissal of Professor Firman Saleh, accused of sexually harassing a student during a thesis supervision session. The journalists from Caka had been covering the protest since it began, and their role in documenting the event has been at the heart of their arrest.

Kifli, Secretary General of the Makassar Student Press Association (PPMI), confirmed that the five journalists were actively reporting on the demonstration.

“These journalists had been following the case since the harassment incident surfaced,” Kifli said.

Following the protest, the group of student journalists stayed behind to finish preparing their reports. They were waiting for the rain to ease before heading home.

However, as they waited, an unknown group of individuals arrived at the scene and began throwing stones at the campus, breaking windows at FIB.

Shortly after the incident, several plainclothes police officers arrived on the scene. They began detaining students who were still in the vicinity, including Nisa, Fajar, Unding, Hanan, and Erik. Some students were also taken from their press office.