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Contras releases archive website on past rights abuses
Jakarta Post - March 21, 2016
The launch of masihingat.kontras.org was part of Kontras' 18th anniversary commemoration held in Menteng, Central Jakarta. Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar said that the website would show that a myriad of human rights abuse cases had taken place in the country, dating back to 1965.
"After conducting in-depth research for three months, we found that more than one human rights abuse case occurred every day in Indonesia," Haris said on the sidelines of the celebration. There were lists of more than 5,000 cases that happened from 2011 right up to the launch date, Haris continued.
"We have collected data about cases occurring in this country from 1965 to 2011. However, it takes time to input all of them into the website," he said.
In the website, the public can access a list of past human rights abuse cases by entering the date of specific cases in the Kalender HAM (human rights calendar) directory.
The data compiled by Kontras are the result of a string of field investigations and news items on human rights abuse cases. The commission hoped that the public would share their information pertaining to human rights cases in the past, Haris said.
"Everyone can contribute to the compilation by informing us via various media platforms, ranging from email, Twitter and Facebook, to SMS," he explained.
Haris said he hoped that the website would serve as open data documentation, so that the public "can learn and share information", rather than functioning as the government's basis for resolving past human rights cases.
Haris was referring to the government's pledge last week to resolve and find a solution to decades-old human rights abuse cases. Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said that the government would settle six past human right cases by May 2.
The six cases are the purge of communists following the Sept. 30, 1965 killing of six Army generals, the Talangsari, Trisakti, Semanggi I and II shootings and the disappearance of pro-democracy activists.
Meanwhile, the new website received a positive welcome from several figures, ranging from scholars to family members of victims of past human rights abuse cases.
Franz Magnis-Suseno, senior lecturer of the Driyarkara Institute of Philosophy hailed the website as "a primary source for killings, kidnappings and persecution cases that took place in the past".
"If the public are not informed about violent events in the past, they will let those kinds of cases happen in the future," the German-born priest and human rights champion said.
"The general public, not only activists and victims' families, can learn a lot about our history, especially about human rights abuse cases, from the website," Asih Widodo, father of Sigit Prasetyo, a victim of the 1998 Semanggi shooting, told The Jakarta Post. (dos)
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