Landslide death toll hits 42, 66 still missing

More than 2,000 people were helping look for the missing after the landslide hit the area late on Friday in Jemblung village of Banjarnegara district, officials said. More bodies were found yesterday morning, bringing the death toll to42, said Rini Muliawati, the head of the provincial police health department. She added that all but four of the victims had been identified. 

The landslide, which followed three days of heavy rain, also buried 8 hectares of farmland and a kilometre of a river, displacing more than 2,000 people, officials said. 

Landslides caused almost two-thirds of disaster-related deaths inIndonesia in 2014, said Sutopo Nugroho, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. About 41 million Indonesians are exposed to the danger of landslides, he said. 

“People who are vulnerable to the threat of landslides generally have no means of protecting themselves,” he said. “They rely on subsistence farming on hilly slopes.” 

 

Blasphemy case against  editor dropped

Indonesian police have dropped a blasphemy case against a newspaper editor over the publication of a cartoon critical of Islamic State but deemed insulting to Islam, the Press Council said yesterday. 

A Muslim group lodged a police complaint in July after The Jakarta Post published an editorial cartoon that depicted an Islamic State flag bearing the Muslim statement of faith “There is no God but Allah” with the image of a skull and crossbones. 

Police said last week that The Jakarta Post editor Meidyatama Suryodiningrat would be questioned as a suspect. ”There has been an agreement not to continue with the case,” Yosep Adi Prasetyo, a member of the Press Council, was quoted as saying by the Tempo.co news website. 

He said police agreed that they would not interfere in journalistic ethical issues handled by the council. Police could not be immediately reached for comment. Some hardline Muslim groups had objected to The Post’s depiction of the profession of faith alongside a skull and crossbones.

The Post, one of two national English-language newspapers, later retracted the cartoon and apologised for any offence to Muslims. But it has denied that the cartoon was blasphemous, saying that it was a journalistic piece that criticised Islamic State.

Human rights group Amnesty International said last month that more than 100 people had been jailed for blasphemy-related offences in Indonesia over the past decade. The blasphemy law was enacted in 1965 and is part of the criminal code, but the number of convictions rose sharply during the 10-year rule of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which ended in October, Amnesty said.