| Home > South-East Asia >> Indonesia | |
Film screening on hold due to religious groups' threats
Jakarta Post - December 18, 2014
"We are disappointed because as citizens we did not have our right to get security granted by the police. We postponed the screening for the sake of the security of the neighboring community, but did not cancel it," AJI Yogyakarta's secretary Rochimawati said on Tuesday evening.
The AJI Yogyakarta branch planned to screen a documentary on how 1965 genocide family survivors learned about the killings and the perpetrators on Tuesday at its office in a residential complex on Jl. Pakel Baru, Umbulharjo.
Chief of the Yogyakarta City Police's intelligence unit, Comr. Sigit Haryadi, who paid a visit to AJI office on Tuesday said that the screening could create conflict in the neighborhood as there was a mass organization that would disperse it.
"We are ready to secure the venue for the screening but it should not be conducted here. We want to protect all the friends here and the surrounding community," Sigit said.
He added that if AJI insisted on screening the film at the office, the police would not be responsible if legal problems emerged. He also suggested some alternative venues but none was agreed upon and so was AJI's proposal to screen the movie at the Yogyakarta city police hall.
On Tuesday evening a number of persons claiming to be intelligence officers from the Yogyakarta district military command (Kodim) and activists of the Indonesian Anti-Communist Front also visited AJI's office.
Dozens of people who already came to the office for the screening expressed disappointment over the cancelation.
Separately, coordinator of the Islamic People's Forum's (FUI) Yogyakarta branch, Muhammad Fuad, said that it was him who broadcasted on social media about the possibility of disbanding the screening to prevent the spread of communism.
"We will continue to monitor the screening of the film. If there is evidence that leads to communism we are ready to disband it," Fuad said.
Meanwhile in Semarang, Central Java, Father Budi Aloysius of the Kebon Dalem Cathedral Church expressed support for the reburials of the bodies of defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members that were buried en masse in Plumbon village, Wonosari subdistrict, Ngaliyan district, Semarang City.
"These victims of the 1965 tragedy were killed without a trial process. They need to be reburied in a decent way," Budi told a discussion forum on the mystery surrounding Plumbon cemetery held at the Semarang City Hall on Tuesday.
He said he would encourage members of the country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and Semarang city administration to accelerate the reburials of the PKI members.
Plumbon cemetery is notorious as the mass graveyard of PKI members killed during the 1965 massacre. Locals have their own versions regarding the number of bodies buried in the place. The versions vary between 21 and 24.
A professor in history of the Semarang State University, Wasino, said that reburial of victims of the 1965 tragedy was not against the law as it was not aimed at spreading communism but at treating the dead in a humane manner.
He also expressed his belief that not all the bodies buried en masse in Plumbon were involved in PKI, especially with regard to the situation in 1965.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/18/film-screening-hold-due-religious-groups-threats.html.
See also:
 |