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AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Tuesday November 29, 2005 3:59 PM

Indonesian president orders lifting of ban on US terror expert

JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the lifting of a one-year-ban on US terrorism researcher and Jemaa! h Islamiyah (JI) expert Sidney Jones.

Analysts had warned that Jones' expulsion was a setback for human rights and democracy in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, which has been transitioning to full democracy since Suharto's 1998 downfall.

Immigration authorities turned away Jones, an expert on the Al Qaeda-linked JI extremist group, when she tried to return to Indonesia after a brief trip to Taiwan last Thursday.

"The reasoning is that the reason for the ban is no longer relevant," presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng told reporters at the palace after announcing that Yudhoyono had ordered the ban lifted.

"The president made this conclusion after asking the minister for justice and human rights (for comment) and after looking at existing files."

Jones had only returned to the country in Ju! ly after being expelled 13 months earlier by the previous government for apparently upsetting high-ranking officials over her reporting on JI, a sensitive subject here.

"Isn't it great?... I'm absolutely delighted. I'm trying to get rid of all these phone calls so I can book an airline ticket back," Jones told AFP by telephone from Singapore.

"They asked me to wait a couple of days to make sure that all the messages get through to immigration. So I expect to be home shortly but definitely this week," she said.

"It's amazing news. This is the shortest expulsion on record."

An official had called her to inform her she could return, she added.

No explanation was given to Jones for the ban, but Home Affairs Minister Hamid Awaluddin reportedly said Monday that she was deemed capable of swaying public opinion on terrorism and thus w! as a security threat.

Top security minister Adisucipto Widodo said that she was denied entry because of her "attitude", the Koran Tempo reported Tuesday.

Activists and politicians had been rattled by Jones' expulsion, fearing it would pave the way for other repressive action by the government.

"This is a yellow light for democracy in Indonesia," Muhammad Hikam, a former defence minister and member of parliament representing Indonesia's third largest party, told AFP just prior to the lifting of the ban.

Jones is Southeast Asia director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), which researches the causes of conflicts worldwide.

The ICG has reported extensively on JI, and Jones was widely quoted by international media outlets after the triple suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali in October, which left 20 bystanders dead.

Jones suggested that those responsible had splintered from JI -- the existence of which the Indonesian government refuses to formally acknowledge -- to create their own hardline group.

Several analysts said that instead of being a threat, Jones' comprehensive studies had provided much insight into local militant networks.

Yudhoyono has repeatedly pledged a more transparent and clean government since coming to power in October 2004, and the retired general had in fact sided with Jones during her previous exile.

JI is blamed by authorities for the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, along with a string of other attacks that began with coordinated bombings of churches in Indonesia in 2000.

Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
 


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