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Minister admonished for rights remarks
Jakarta Post - December 5, 2014
Ferry Kusuma from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said Thursday that Tedjo's statement was inappropriate, calling it a "dagger that stabbed the hearts of human rights victims and families".
"It was a painful statement from a coordinating minister. We demand that Tedjo retract his statement and make a public apology," Ferry said during a hearing at the National Commission on Human Rights's (Komnas HAM) office in Jakarta.
On Monday, Tedjo, who is also a former navy chief, said that the public should not bring up unresolved human rights cases from the past, stressing that this was the right time to move on from that subject.
"It happened in the past. Now, we should continue with a reconciliation process and not go backwards. This country needs to be prosperous instead of looking for others' mistakes," Tedjo said at the time.
Maria Catarina Sumarsih, mother of Bernardus Realino Norma "Wawan" Irmawan, a student who was killed in the 1998 Semanggi shooting incident, said that Tedjo's statement contradicted President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's campaign promise to bring justice to past cases of human rights abuse.
During his presidential campaign, Jokowi repeatedly voiced his commitment to resolving past human rights abuses and for the establishment of an ad hoc human rights court to try alleged perpetrators.
"The statement has shown us that the coordinating minister does not share the same vision and mission as Jokowi," Sumarsih said at the hearing.
Sumarsih also said that Jokowi must establish an ad hoc human rights court to bring anyone who was involved in rights-abuse cases before the court. "The victims and families feel that we have been toyed by the state because there was no intent to resolve the cases," she said.
Tedjo's statement was another awkward response from the government after it recently decided to grant parole to Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, the convicted murderer of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly defended the release of Pollycarpus, saying that the convict had fulfilled all the requirements needed for parole. Yasonna also said that Pollycarpus maintained his rights as a human being despite his crime.
Last Friday, Pollycarpus, convicted of the fatal poisoning of Munir during a flight to Amsterdam in 2004, was released on parole from the Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung, West Java, where he had been imprisoned for the past six years. He was supposed to serve 14 years. His release was postponed several times during former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration.
Despite Pollycarpus' verdict as the murderer, rights activists and Munir's family are also still seeking justice for the case as they allege that the mastermind of the case has yet to face trial.
Tedjo reiterated his comment on Thursday, urging people to move on, adding that human rights victims and activists had the right to speak their minds.
"There are people who have undergone trials and been declared not guilty and there are people who were found guilty [of human rights abuse] in the past. We do not want to go back all over again and dwell on the past," he said at the State Palace compound.
Tedjo added that the most important thing was to initiate a reconciliation process to help victims and families move on. However, he did elaborate about what the reconciliation should look like, nor if there would be a special unit tasked with overseeing such a process.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/05/minister-admonished-rights-remarks.html.
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