Following criticism on the recent parole of Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, convicted murderer of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, the government has renewed its commitment to set up an ad hoc human rights court to hear cases of past gross human rights violations.
Margareth S. Aritonang, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Wed, December 03 2014, 9:53 AM
Following criticism on the recent parole of Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, convicted murderer of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, the government has renewed its commitment to set up an ad hoc human rights court to hear cases of past gross human rights violations.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly said President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is set to gather officials from related institutions to prepare for the establishment of the ad hoc human rights court.
“[The President] will meet [me], Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister [Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno], Attorney General [HM Prasetyo] and commissioners from [the National Commission on Human Rights or Komnas HAM] to discuss it,” Yasonna, a former Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker, said on the sidelines of a plenary meeting at the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Yasonna explained that the meeting was expected to broadly discuss the times and places where the atrocities took place.
He also guaranteed that the government would resume the deliberation of a bill on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR), which was scrapped by the Constitutional Court in 2006.
Yasonna was aware of mounting doubts, particularly from the country’s human rights campaigners, on Jokowi’s will to try past human rights abuses during his five-year leadership following the release of Pollycarpus.
Pollycarpus, a former Garuda Indonesia pilot who was convicted of the fatal poisoning of Munir during a flight to Amsterdam in 2004, was recently released from the Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung, West Java, on parole signed by Yasonna.
Pollycarpus, who was supposed to serve for 14 years beginning in June 2008, was released after accumulating a large number of sentence-remissions during his imprisonment at the penitentiary. He received remissions on 11 occasions for a total of 42 months.
Although Yasonna defended the government’s decision in granting Pollycarpus’ parole, he called on critics not to question Jokowi’s commitment to human rights merely because Pollycarpus was released.
“Trust me, we are truly committed. [The strategies have been] planned,” he said.
PDI-P lawmaker Trimedya Panjaitan guaranteed that the party faction in the House would monitor the government’s commitment to the issue, which had been repeatedly declared during Jokowi’s presidential campaign.
“[Jokowi] cannot escape the promise. He has no option but to solve the cases of human rights abuse that took place in the past, otherwise he, as well as us, who officially nominated him, will lose the election in 2019,” Trimedya said.
Komnas HAM has declared seven cases of past human rights abuses as gross violations and has called for the government to follow up its investigations on such cases. The process, however, has been stalled for years due to bickering between Komnas HAM and the Attorney Generals Office over technicalities.
The unresolved cases consist of the 1989 Talangsari massacre, the forced disappearances of anti-Soeharto activists in 1997 and 1998, the Trisakti University shootings, the Semanggi I and Semanggi II student shootings in 1998 and 1999, the mysterious killings of alleged criminals in the 1980s, the anti-communist massacres of 1965 and the various abuses that took place in Wasior and Wamena in Papua in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
In 2013, the House revived the establishment of an ad hoc human rights court to hear cases of violations that took place during the May 1998 riots in order to put a stumbling block on the candidacy of Gerindra chief patron Prabowo Subianto, who was allegedly responsible. However, lawmakers ditched the plan as the July presidential election approached since the majority of political parties eventually teamed up to endorse Prabowo’s nomination.
In a move to win over eligible voters, particularly among activists, Jokowi apparently used the case to beat Prabowo in the presidential race.
In a move to put pressure on Jokowi to fulfill his promise, activist Choirul Anam from the Solidarity Action Committee for Munir (Kasum), a coalition of human rights groups, said that Kasum would release an official warning for the President to revoke Pollycarpus’ release.
“We hope that the President will respond to our note in less than seven days otherwise we will file a lawsuit against him,” Anam said