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Indonesia needs formal law to protect human rights activists: Komnas HAM
Jakarta Post - May 29, 2015
Komnas HAM said that complaints over violations against rights activists reported to the institution centered on violations of freedoms of speech and assembly, which hampered activists in further advocating the rights of the public.
Komnas HAM identified three measures often employed by government officials, in particular the police, to hamper the work of human rights activists, namely criminalization, arbitrary detention and murder.
"These are patterns that were widely used to intimidate activists during the New Order regime. The adoption of such acts in this democratic era is regretful," Komnas HAM commissioner Siti Noor Laila said on Friday.
"Komnas HAM thus will endorse stipulations to ensure the protection of rights defenders in an amendment of the 1999 law on human rights," she added.
Komnas HAM data reveals that intimidation of rights activists took place mostly in the easternmost province of Papua. Of the 22 incidents reported to the rights commission, five took place in the conflict-prone region.
Meanwhile, an escalation in cases of intimidation against rights activists occurred in West Java, East Java, South Sulawesi, Yogyakarta and North Sumatra provinces.
The national rights body is currently investigating the murder of environmentalist Jopi Peranginangin in a nightclub in Jakarta last week, in addition to the arrest of four activists promoting human rights in West Papua.
The lack of a strict regulation to protect activists in their work has allowed the recurrence of violence against them, Komnas HAM says. "And this puts democracy under a serious threat," Komnas HAM chief Nur Kholis stressed.(hhr)
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