Handicapped face eviction, seek compensation

The Jakarta Post   |  Thu, 07/02/2009 9:24 AM  |  City

Hard steps to justice: A man in a wheelchair is helped going downstairs at the Central Jakarta District Court on Wednesday. A total of 73 disabled persons working at a Cempaka Putih workshop face civil lawsuits from the Harapan Kita Foundation, the owners, which want them to vacate the building. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama

A total of 73 disabled people face a  lawsuit filed by the Harapan Kita Foundation for refusing to leave the latter’s workshop where they have been living and working for decades.

The Central Jakarta District Court was scheduled to hold the first hearing Wednesday, but postponed the hearing for two weeks because the disabled, represented by the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH), failed to show the letter signed by all signatories.

The handicapped people were told to vacate the workshop on Jl. Cempaka Putih Raya No.1, Central Jakarta, by the Foundation, said Harapan Kita’s lawyers, Yendrison and Sugeng Martono.

The workshop, Swa Prasidya Purna, opened in 1975 under the initiative of the then first lady Tien Soeharto to prepare the handicapped for independent living. They were invited to live and work in the workshop and receive a proper education fully funded by the foundation, which belonged to Soeharto’s family.

They were also granted several business units, including a printing house, textiles, and glass-carving. They were a model of the then government’s success in developing handicapped human resources.

Due to the global economic crisis in 1998, Soeharto’s half-brother, Probosutedjo, who managed the foundation, closed the workshop.

The lawyers said the handicapped had had no right to reside in the workshop since the closure.
“We are willing to leave the workshop upon sufficient compensation,” said Dormaida Sianipar, a workshop resident, who has been living in the workshop since 1984.

Dormaida said she and the other disabled people were forced to leave the workshop without an adequate allowance.

“They provided us with only Rp 500,000 [US$49] to Rp 750,000 to return to our hometown.”

The legal battle has been ongoing since 1999, when the foundation first took the case to court in 2005 with the Supreme Court rejecting the disabled people’s appeal, granting the foundation the right to dismiss them from the workshop. The foundation filed a lawsuit with the Central Jakarta District Court as the disabled people refused to leave the premises. (JP/nia)

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