An Australian graduate student who was on her honeymoon has been deported from Indonesia overnight for being on the government’s immigration “blacklist".

Belinda Lopez, a PhD candidate for Indonesian studies at Macquarie University, wrote on Twitter that she had been detained at Bali's Denpasar Airport since Friday.



She said immigration officials wanted to know if she was a journalist and repeatedly asked her if she had "done something bad to Indonesia".

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Papua has suffered a simmering separatist conflict since it was incorporated into Indonesia after a widely criticised UN-backed referendum in 1969 and remains one of its poorest regions. Access to international media remains restricted.

Lopez, who was formerly a reporter in Jakarta, said on Facebook that she was on her honeymoon and had plans to visit the Baliem tourism festival in Papua.

She tweeted that she had reached out to Australia for support but at first was told there was no assistance for "immigration matters in another country".

"I asked if there was any other support that could be provided and they said unfortunately not," she tweeted.

"I just had to wait for a flight."

She was deported about midnight.

Earlier, Lopez also wrote she had previously been deported from Papua in 2016, after being suspected of being a reporter.

She was an editor for English-language newspapers in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, and has produced podcasts for Australia's state broadcaster.

A freelance journalism site says she won awards in 2012 and 2013 for reporting, including a report on juvenile incarceration in the US.

Lopez said being deported was "devastating".

"It's the first place I moved to as an adult, have visited so many times since, to learn the language and to visit people who have become some of my best friends in the world," she said in a WhatsApp message.

Immigration office spokesman Agung Sampurno has denied Lopez was being deported on suspicions she was heading to Papua as a journalist.



"Belinda was barred from entering Indonesia on an immigration issue," he told Reuters, confirming, though, that she was on an immigration blacklist.

Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said Lopez's "case shows once again that the Indonesian authorities are still restricting foreign journalists, or anyone suspected (of doing) journalism, to enter Papua."



President Joko Widodo after coming to power in 2014 pledged to ease media restrictions for Papua, but activists say journalists continue to be blocked when trying to report from there.



In February 2018, a BBC reporter was ordered to leave the province after Indonesia's military said tweets she sent on her trip had "hurt soldiers' feelings".

Ms Lopez's holiday plans included the Baliem festival in the easternmost Papua region that Indonesia restricts foreign journalists and diplomats from visiting. Picture Twitter/@belle_lopez (Twitter/@belle_lopez)