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HRW urges EU to greet Jokowi with a message about rights
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A dark history -- Maj. Gen. Soeharto briefs members of the Army’s Special Forces (RPKAD, now Kopassus) prior to the removal of the bodies of the Army generals who were murdered during an alleged coup attempt on Sept. 30, 1965, which was blamed on the now defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). As the most senior military officer available at the time, Soeharto led all the operations to restore security and impose order in the aftermath of the attempt. (JP/30 Tahun Indonesia Merdeka/-)
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uman Rights Watch (HRW) deputy Asia director Phelim Kine has said the critical issue of human rights should not get lost in the diplomatic mix during the visit of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to Europe next week.
Kine said that human rights abuses, past and present, remained a serious problem in Indonesia, impacting victims’ families, women and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. Jokowi’s interlocutors in Europe needed to keep these issues front and center in their meetings, he said.
“That includes expressing support for the Indonesian government’s tentative first steps toward accountability for the mass killings of 1965 and 1966 that claimed at least 500,000 lives,” Kine said.
“A government-supported symposium on April 18 may seem unremarkable, but it’s an act of political courage that European leaders should praise.”
President Jokowi is set to discuss trade ties and intelligence sharing with European Union officials and his counterparts in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK during the visit.
Kine went on to say that Indonesian women were counting on European leaders to express their outrage at the government’s failure to stop the abusive “virginity tests” women are forced to undergo when applying to the National Police and Indonesian Military. Dozens of political prisoners, mostly peaceful activists from Papua and the Moluccas, also needed European leaders to tell Jokowi that they were not forgotten despite their long imprisonment, he added.
The rights activist said European leaders should speak out for sexual and religious minorities who were vulnerable to local-level threats and violence. “Government officials have recently jumped on the Islamist bandwagon to make increasingly hostile remarks against Indonesia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population,” he said.
According to the HRW, public rhetoric against Indonesia’s religious minorities, including the Ahmadiyah, Shia and some Christian congregations, has for a number of years been accompanied by serious violence against these communities.
“Jokowi may be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, by failing to protect religious minorities from Islamist and other militant groups,” said Kine.
He said Jokowi also needed to hear the concerns of European leaders about the Indonesian government’s tight grip on the access of foreign media, academics, and nongovernmental organizations to the country’s easternmost island of Papua. “These restrictions defy Jokowi’s May 2015 declaration that Papua was now open to foreign media.”
Kine said the measure of success of Jokowi’s European trip would be its balance of meaningful engagement on human rights issues with discussions on economic and security ties. (ebf)
