Irate Jakarta urges US travel boycott

An angry Indonesian government advised its citizens yesterday against non-essential travel to the United States, in response to Washington's decision on Thursday to put Indonesia on its growing list of countries whose men have to register with the immigration authorities and be fingerprinted if they visit the US.

It said the advice was issued because it feared that Indonesians would be subjected to "unjustified harassment".

Several other countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, have protested against the US decision, but without going as far as Indonesia.

After meeting the US assistant secretary of state James Kelly in Jakarta, the Indonesian foreign minister, Hassan Wirajuda, said the advice would remain in place while Indonesia studied "the implementation of the policy of the government of America".

The US regulation, which now applies to 25, mostly Muslim, states requires all male visitors over 16 to be photographed and fingerprinted and have their documents examined on their arrival in the US.

American citizens, diplomats, refugees and permanent resident aliens - those holding "green cards" - are not affected.

About 40,000 Indonesians are thought to live in the US.

Washington says that the policy is necessary to prevent another attack like like those of September 11.

Critics say it is deliberately aimed at men from Muslim countries.

An Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman, Marty Natalegawa, said the policy was "arbitrary, hard to understand and unacceptable".

He said Jakarta was not reacting to Washington's warning last year against travel to Indonesia but "out of concern for the welfare of our citizens".

"We're not talking about threats from acts of terror in the normal way but acts of unjustified harassment," he said.

"So to be on the safe side we are asking our citizens to wait a bit."

He added: "The policy goes against the fact that Indonesia, like the United States, has become the victim of cruel terror acts and taken clear and positive steps in the collective effort with the international community to eliminate the terror danger."

Indonesia suffered the worst terror attack since the September 11 strikes on New York and Washington when suspected Islamists detonated three bombs at a resort in Bali in October, killing at least 193 people.

The US media report this week that US officials say 1,169 men from the listed countries who registered voluntarily have been detained, of whom 170 are still in custody.

The Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, who is due to leave for a visit to the US today, called for the measures to be suspended.

"Pakistan has been at the forefront of the war against terrorism," he said.

"It's unfair to bracket us with other countries."