O

n the heels of International Labor Day on May 1, 34 workers from a factory in the East Sepatan district of Tangerang regency were finally freed late on Friday from torturous working hours and treatment meted out to them by their employer for two years.

Tangerang regency police named the owner of the waste-recycling factory, along with the firm'€™s four foremen, as suspects for depriving the 34 individuals of liberty and torturing them.

Police chief Sr. Comr. Bambang Priyo Andogo said on Saturday that Juki Irawan, 40, and the four foremen '€” Tedi, Tio, Dirman and Poldes '€” were currently in detention, while there were two other suspects still at large.

'€œWe have completed the reenactment of 83 cases of deprivation of liberty of the workers by the seven suspects,'€ he said, adding that Juki, a local resident, had long been known as an unscrupulous businessman.

Detective chief Comr. Shinto Silitonga said that the raid on Friday evening was made based on reports from two runaway workers Andi Gunawan, 20, and Junaidi, 20, who both hailed from Blambangan, North Lampung.

Andi was initially quiet, but later corroborated Junaidi, who managed to escape from the factory and told village head Sobri Wirawan about the torture and confinement they had suffered during four months of work in the factory without pay.

Escorted by an officer from North Lampung Police precinct, Sobri and Bachtiar, a community unit chief in the village, went to the factory where he was told that Andi had ran away after stealing in the factory, which produces aluminum bars.

'€œI later received confirmation on what happened from Andi and concluded that the theft story was untrue,'€ he told The Jakarta Post at the police station in Tigaraksa.

Sobri reported the case to the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which later brought him to file a report to the Jakarta Police.

In the raid, conducted with North Lampung police, they released 26 workers '€” mostly hailing from Cianjur, West Java '€” who were still working at the factory and another six workers who were confined in a locked room. Four of the workers are underage.

According to Shinto, the factory was illegal because it had no operating permit from the administration.

The police said that the workers were forced to work 18 hours a day with only two meals a day and no pay, although they were promised a Rp 600,000 (US$62) monthly wage. Their cellular phones, clothes and wallets were confiscated and they were placed in a 6-meter by 8-meter room with no windows and forced to share a bathroom.

'€œWe weren'€™t allowed to change clothes and communicate with people outside. The clothes I'€™m wearing are the ones I had on during my first day of work,'€ said Rijal Putra, 17.

Rijal and Iwan Kurniawan, 16, both from Lampung, showed the skin problems they had suffered that had been caused by the torture.

'€œWe were forced to produce 50 aluminum bars per day and if we failed to meet the target they would physically torture us,'€ said Iwan, adding that the chemical liquid sprayed by the foremen as their punishment had left burn wounds.

Shinto said the suspects were charged with violating Article 333 of the Criminal Code on the deprivation of liberty and Article 351 on torture. The article on the deprivation of liberty carries a maximum punishment of eight years in prison.

Kontras activist Yati Andriyani said they would ensure the victims received justice and that the perpetrators were punished in accordance with their crimes, adding that the case was '€œintolerable'€.