At the beginning of September, social media was flooded with posts drawing public attention to “Black September”.

This term refers to the numerous human rights violations in Indonesia that occurred in the month of September, such as the Sept. 30 Movement (1965), the Tanjung Priok massacre (1984), the Semanggi II tragedy (1999), the scorched earth operation in then-East Timor (1999), the murder of human rights defender Munir (2004), the murder of farmer Salim Kancil who protested against sand quarrying in Lumajang, East Java (2015), the murder of Rev. Yeremia in Papua (2020) and most recently, the forced eviction of Rempang residents in Riau Islands (2023).

Many communities are also organizing public discussions on Matt Easton’s book about Munir’s murder mystery, titled We Have Tired of Violence, which was translated into Indonesian earlier this year.

This momentum must be sustained to raise public awareness of the ongoing and unresolved violence and human rights violations.

However, alongside these significant cases, we must also focus on the people facing another form of ongoing violence, termed “slow violence”, which has become a part of their daily lives regardless of the time of year. For example, the massive coal dust pollution in Marunda, North Jakarta.

Since 2019, residents of the Marunda low-cost apartment and its surroundings, including elementary and middle schools, have been suffering from severe air pollution caused by coal dust from coal stockpiling and related activities, such as loading, at Marunda Port, located just 2 kilometers away.

The air pollution has severely impacted around 11,000 people in the area, including infants, children and the elderly, who are experiencing acute respiratory infections, such as bronchitis, as well as severe eye and skin irritation.