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Rights Campaigner Buyung awarded military honors
Adnan Buyung Nasution - JP/Jerry AdigunaLegal reformer and senior advocate Adnan Buyung Nasution was taken to his final resting place at Tanah Kusir public cemetery in Jakarta on Thursday, in a military ceremony to respect his legacy as a defender of the poor, after passing away at the age of 81
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Adnan Buyung Nasution - JP/Jerry Adiguna
Legal reformer and senior advocate Adnan Buyung Nasution was taken to his final resting place at Tanah Kusir public cemetery in Jakarta on Thursday, in a military ceremony to respect his legacy as a defender of the poor, after passing away at the age of 81.
He is remembered as a consistent and idealistic yet controversial attorney, human rights campaigner, legal reform initiator and legal activist for the unjustly prosecuted poor of the country, from the time of the first president Sukarno into the current Reform era.
President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo expressed his condolences, saying that the country had lost one of its best people, describing Buyung as 'a role model, a national figure, a persistent, brave human rights defender who had high integrity.'
Born into a poor family in 1934, before Indonesia's independence, his mother was a traditional food seller in Yogyakarta and his father fought to expel Dutch colonial soldiers. Young Buyung joined a student movement called 'KASI' to support the birth of the New Order, believing that Sukarno's leadership had become overly oppressive implementing his personal concept of revolution.
Buyung become a prosecutor in 1966 after graduating from the school of law at the University of Indonesia. It was the job that opened his eyes to injustice and he decided to leave it to become a lawyer after seeing many poor people prosecuted by the Soeharto regime without receiving legal assistance.
His legal firm operated from 1968 to 1987, when he had to leave the country and the firm was shut down after the repression of the New Order regime against dissidents increased. He used his 'escape' period to earn a doctoral degree of law from Utrecht University in Netherlands.
'Bang Buyung had a good heart and was always ready to lend a hand to those in need,' said Presidential chief of staff Teten Masduki, a former anticorruption and legal activist.
To protect poor citizens from unjust prosecutions, Buyung established the Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) in 1971 and the agency continues its operations today protecting poor citizens who are usually the victims of investigations launched by prosecutors and the police.
Buyung was a prominent voice during the Reform movement in 1998 demanding Soeharto's resignation and urging the successive government to implement clean governance.
His idealism continued into recent years when he strongly criticized former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono despite his status as a Presidential Advisory Board member between 2007 and 2009. He described Yudhoyono's ministers as 'Yes Men'.
Buyung was a figure who dared to make controversy for the things that he considered right. This included his decision to defend graft and terrorist defendants in the name of human rights, such as former tax official Gayus H. Tambunan and former Democratic party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, both convicted of graft.
