Yuli Riswati (Migran Pos; Terenia Puspita)

It never occurred to 39-year-old domestic worker Yuli Riswati that she would be deported from Hong Kong to Indonesia after she reported on the city’s ongoing protests.

She was found guilty of failing to extend her visa and so the authorities put her on a flight to Surabaya last Monday. However, along with her supporters, she alleged her deportation was politically motivated.

Yuli, who has a two-year employment contract until January 2021, renewed her passport in July but forgot to extend her visa. Reports say Yuli had been detained for 28 days for immigration violations.

Prior to her deportation, Yuli — who won the Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants last year for her short story about migrant workers — had been documenting the protests in Hong Kong on Indonesian news site Migran Pos, which she initiated together with three fellow migrant workers in March. She said it was first intended to give Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong reliable information about the Indonesian presidential election amid rampant misinformation. After the election and before the protests broke in June, her past articles on migranpos.com were mostly about migrant workers in Hong Kong.

“I invite friends who have the same mission and vision to write on Migran Pos to provide correct information. So, this is about the activities of migrant workers and their families,” Yuli told The Jakarta Post at the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute (LBH Surabaya) in East Java on Friday.

NGO Migrant Care Indonesia and human rights group Amnesty International Indonesia have called on the Indonesian government to file a complaint with Hong Kong authorities against Yuli’s deportation. They criticized Hong Kong’s treatment of Yuli — who they described as an activist and a journalist — saying it was repressive and unusual.

Yuli found her case in Hong Kong to be unusual, particularly since she has a valid employment contract and her employer offered to endorse her. She said her employer once told her that the immigration office had described her case as “special” without Yuli knowing exactly what that meant.

Supporters and independent legal experts have said it was rare for a domestic worker to be detained and deported for an expired visa.

“I have never seen a case in which immigration goes to the homes and arrests workers based on this,” said Phobsuk Gasing, chairperson of the Hong Kong Federation of Domestic Workers Unions, as quoted by AFP. “As long as there is still a contract, the employer confirms the hiring of the worker and explains in a letter to immigration why they forgot to extend the visa, immigration always allows the workers to get their visa renewed without any hassle.”

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said Yuli had violated Hong Kong’s immigration policies by overstaying her visa, saying that the facts presented during her trial — before she was indicted for overstaying on Nov. 4 — had confirmed her wrongdoing.

The ministry’s protection of Indonesian citizens abroad director, Judha Nugraha, said his side “was not in a position to speculate” about whether Yuli’s deportation was connected to her activities as a journalist documenting protests in Hong Kong.

“What we can confirm is that [Yuli] had indeed violated the law and she overstayed [her visa],” he said on Tuesday, adding that “the Hong Kong authority made a decision to deport [Yuli]” after she was found guilty of immigration violations.

The government, through the Indonesian Consulate in Hong Kong, had assisted Yuli throughout her case so as to ensure her rights were fulfilled, Judha said.

But Yuli said she had only received legal assistance once, and that was in the form of communication through the Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions (FADWU) when she was in detention.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mahendra Siregar said on Thursday that his office would continue to assist Yuli.

Yuli is currently seeking help from LBH Surabaya in filing a complaint against the government, demanding the government restore her reputation and compensate her.

“I don’t know yet [whether to return to Hong Kong or not] even though my employer still wants me to. I want to see first where my legal efforts lead me before I decide whether to return to work in Hong Kong,” Yuli said.

On Saturday, antigovernment protesters gathered in Hong Kong’s Edinburgh Place to show support for Yuli, The Straits Times reported.

Yuli is the latest Indonesian caught in the middle of the protests after Indonesian journalist Veby Mega Indah was hit by a rubber bullet in late September while covering a demonstration for Suara, an Indonesian-language newspaper in Hong Kong. (dis/mrc/dpk)

— Dian Septiari and Marchio Irfan Gorban contributed to the story from Jakarta

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