Residents of Greater Jakarta grouped under a movement named Tim Advokasi Ibukota (Jakarta Advocacy Team) filed a historic civil lawsuit with the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday to fight air pollution in the city and demand that the central government and regional administrations do something about it.

Wearing blue T-shirts bearing the slogan “Aku & Polusi” (Pollution and I), about 20 plaintiffs arrived at the court at 1:30 p.m.

Among the plaintiffs was Istu Prayogi, who in 2016 was told by his doctor that he was sensitive to air pollution.

He moved to Jakarta in 1989 to teach. Everything was fine until in 1995 he began to experience severe headaches every afternoon. He had to take headache medication every single day to relieve his pain.

One day, he noticed that his urine was tinted with blood. Since then, he went back and forth to the hospital just to hear doctors saying that nothing was wrong with his body. “Until in 2016, a doctor did an ultrasound on my body and found out that my lungs were ‘crowded.’ That was when the doctor and I finally realized that my pain came from the effects of air pollution,” he said.

Istu, who now lives in Depok, West Java, with his family, prefers working near his house and avoids going to Jakarta.

Another plaintiff was Leona, who said that air pollution had been the cause of her respiratory problems.

“I always bring my ventolin [inhaler] and an N95 mask with me everywhere I go. I don’t have a monthly income, but I need to allocate money to buy a nebulizer. It is expensive,” she said.

While a pack of 50 regular masks only costs Rp 20,000 (US$1.40), for the same amount of money Leona can only buy a single N95 mask.

The price of a nebulizer, meanwhile, ranges from Rp 175,000 to Rp 500,000. For those with asthma, a nebulizer serves as a breathing therapy tool. It turns liquid medication into a mist so it can easily be inhaled into the lungs.

In May 2018, the World Health Organization released data recorded in several cities in Southeast Asia from 2015 to 2016, which revealed that Jakarta was among the worst-polluted cities in the region.

The Ibukota movement first appeared in the media in December, when environmentalists held a protest and sent a warning to the Jakarta administration and central government. They warned that if nothing was done about the air pollution within 60 days, they would file a civil lawsuit.

More than 60 days after that, the activists claimed that the government had done nothing to reduce air pollution in the city.

Through a complaint center that was opened for a month in April, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) gathered 57 people to join in the movement. However, after an assessment and verification, the lawsuit submitted on Thursday was supported by only 31 people.

It was the first civil lawsuit protesting air pollution in the country.

“The first trial is slated to be held on July 25. In the meantime, we will keep campaigning on the issue to raise awareness and gain more support,” LBH Jakarta lawyer Nelson Nikodemus told the press.

The lawsuit is addressed to seven people, namely the president, the environment and forestry minister, the health minister, the home minister and the governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry’s pollution and environmental damage control director general, Karliansyah, said that in 2019, the government had taken several measures to reduce air pollution, including the implementation of Ministerial Regulation No. 15/2019 on thermal power plant emissions.

He also said the government was in the process of revising Government Regulation No. 41/1999 on air pollution control.

Karliansyah said air pollution in the city was still under control. The average level of PM2.5 particulate matter from Jan. 1 to June 24, for example, was 30.64 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³), according to the data he sent to the Post.

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