Maverick Indonesia

Watch Out! Fraud Attempt in the name of Pesta Blogger

Bloggers beware! Maverick has received news that some unscrupulous people are trying to pull a fast one on the unwary using the Pesta Blogger name. This is a picture by Siwi, a blogger from Surabaya, who captured the SMS:

The scam consists of a SMS message asking recipients to participate in Pesta Blogger, that has “limited places”. It then asks for a contribution of Rp250,000 to be sent to a Mandiri account.

According to SofyanNR, a blogger from Semarang, the fraudster is using the National Awakening Day as lure to attract people to participate. He also wrote on his blog that the fraudster called him and mentioned several blogging communities, including Loenpia, which the fraudster said, will become the host.

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Press Freedom in Doubt

Indo Pos reported on Monday, January 28th, 2008, that Aliansi Jurnalis Indonesia (AJI) is protesting against the decision by the President’s Press and Media Bureau for refusing to issue media passes to a number of journalists. The said the refusal might be because of articles written by the journalists who were denied the passes.

The Jakarta Post’s Abdul Khalik , for instance, was quoted as saying that he suspects he was denied a media pass because of his story about hotel payment mark ups during 2006 ASEAN Conference in Manila.

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