Pernyataan Lima Narapidana Politik Papua

Sabtu, 9 Mei 2015, saya kebetulan berada di Jayapura ketika Presiden Joko Widodo menerima permohonan grasi dari lima narapidana Papua. Anum Siregar, pengacara mereka dari Aliansi Demokrasi Papua, minta saya bantu mereka di kantornya, beberapa jam sesudah mereka bebas. Mereka hendak bikin keterangan kepada media. Mereka juga memerlukan tempat menginap. Kelima orang ini adalah petani. Mereka sudah dipenjara 12 tahun.

Minggu, 10 Mei 2015, mereka membacakan pernyataan ini bersama Anum Siregar serta Peneas Lokbere dari Bersatu untuk Kebenaran dan Freddy Pawika OFM dari SKP Jayapura. Lokbere, yang bertahun-tahun bantu tahanan politik, juga minta saya bicara. Saya menekankan pentingnya mereka menjalani medical check up sesudah keluar dari penjara. Mereka akan check up di rumah sakit Dian Harapan, Jayapura, dengan bantuan Pawika dari SKP Jayapura. Dua dari lima orang ini membubuhkan cap jempol karena mereka tak biasa tanda tangan.

Linus Hiluka menunjukkan siaran media ini dengan tandatangan dan cap jempol. ©Andreas Harsono

Siaran Media

Kami ingin menyatakan beberapa hal sehubungan dengan pembebasan kami dari hukuman penjara kemarin.

Kami berlima bertemu Presiden Joko Widodo sekitar 15 menit dalam sebuah ruangan tertutup di penjara Abepura. Beliau didampingi Ibu Iriana, Menteri Hukum dan Hak Asasi Manusia Yasonna Laoly serta Wakil Gubernur Klemen Tinal. Presiden mengatakan memenuhi permintaan grasi kami. Beliau mengatakan inisiatif ini datang dari beliau berhubung proses amnesti lebih perlu waktu lewat pertimbangan Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat. Beliau minta maaf atas apa yang dilakukan aparat keamanan terhadap kami selama 12 tahun terakhir.

Kami mengucapkan terima kasih kepada Presiden Jokowi. Namun kami juga minta semua tahanan politik, termasuk dari Kepulauan Maluku, juga dibebaskan. Baik lewat program grasi maupun amnesti.

Presiden Jokowi mengiyakan. “Ini baru memulai,” katanya.

Kami juga minta jaminan keamanan sesudah bebas. Kami tak mau ditangkap dan dicari gara-gara sesudah bebas. Ini bukan hanya buat kami tapi buat semua warga Papua. Beliau mendengar dan menanggapi serius. Beliau mengatakan akan bicara dengan pihak kepolisian dan militer.

Hari ini kami secara terbuka minta kepada Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat mendukung rencana Presiden Jokowi membebaskan semua tahanan politik, termasuk sahabat kami, Filep Karma, yang dihukum sejak 2004.

Mulai besok kami akan menjalani pemeriksaan kesehatan di rumah sakit Dian Harapan. Ada dari kami yang sakit. Bila rumah sakit menyatakan kami sehat, kami akan kembali ke rumah kami masing-masing di Wamena.

Kami mohon bantuan dari berbagai gereja dan negara, dari organisasi masyarakat sampai pemerintah daerah, agar kami bisa kembali ke rumah kami, mengurus kebun dan membenahi kehidupan keluarga kami. Bukan mudah untuk kembali ke rumah sesudah 12 tahun di penjara.

Kami ingat dengan dua rekan tahanan lain, Michael Hiselo dan Kanius Murib, yang ditangkap bersama kami April 2003 namun meninggal dalam masa penahanan. Hiselo meninggal di Makassar pada 27 Agustus 2007. Murib meninggal di Wamena pada 10 Desember 2010. Kami akan mengunjungi keluarga mereka di Wamena.

Kami mengucapkan terima kasih kepada semua pihak yang membantu kami selama 12 tahun terakhir. Kami takkan melupakan jasa baik mereka.


Apotnalogolik Lokobal
Jefrai Murib
Kimanus Wenda
Linus Hiluka
Numbungga Telenggen

Indonesian military 'imposing virginity tests' on female recruits

Deutsche Welle

In a report published on May 13, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Indonesia of subjecting women applying for the armed forces to discriminatory virginity tests, and called President Joko Widodo to put an end to the practice.

"The Indonesian armed forces should recognize that harmful and humiliating 'virginity tests' on women recruits does nothing to strengthen national security," said Nisha Varia, HRW's women's rights advocacy director.

Based, among other things, on interviews with 11 women - military recruits and fiancées of military officers - who had undergone the test, the rights group found the practice includes the invasive "two-finger" test to determine whether female applicants' hymens are intact.

Under condition of anonymity, the rights group quotes a Jakarta military doctor in the report as saying that the tests occur in military hospitals across the country with female military applicants tested en masse in large halls divided into curtain-separated examination rooms.

Female military physicians typically conduct the test, the report said, adding that the recruits are told these were crucial to preserving "the dignity and the honor of the nation." Last November, the group revealed that Indonesia had also been conducting similar tests to filter female police recruits.

In a DW interview, Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher at HRW, says the tests have probably been conducted for decades, with some women being told it's about honor or preventing "naughty girls" from marrying young officers.

Andreas Harsono: 'Some military wives argued that a virgin is more likely to build trust with her husband than a non-virgin'

DW: What is the Indonesian military's justification for conducting such tests on female applicants?

Andreas Harsono: They argue that they want the physically and mentally best candidates to join the armed forces. They consider a virgin is mentally healthier than a non-virgin. They reportedly often said, "How could you defend the honor of our nation if you cannot defend your own honor?"

They argue that their military doctors would know if the female candidate had lost her hymen due to an accident or sexual activities. The doctors usually asked the applicant why her hymen was no longer intact. If it is due to an accident - for instance, climbing trees, riding bicycles, falling down - they still considered her application. But her application was turned down, quietly, if the doctors thought she had active sexual activities.

What is the argument given by Indonesian authorities for testing fiancées of military officers?

Some military wives argued that a virgin is more likely to build trust with her husband than a non-virgin. They argued the trust is important in a family whose husband needs to travel frequently. In Indonesia, a military assignment in difficult areas, such as West Papua, could be as long as one year. It's often extended after a break.

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But a woman, who comes from a military family and refused to undertake the two-finger test in 1984, said that the reason is to prevent "naughty girls" from marrying young officers. She said that only active young women usually dare to approach single officers.

Older military wives, whose daughters were mostly more passive, might get lesser chance to marry the officers. Thus they need the so-called virginity test and they defend it fiercely.

How long have these tests been conducted?

They are conducted in the army, the navy and the air force. Human Rights Watch interviewed a military wife who undertook the test in 1964 while her older sister did that in 1962. It means it's been going on for decades. But it's still unclear when this practice began.

According to Dr. Irawati Harsono, a retired policewoman who protested against "virginity tests" in 1964, her class was already tested. She said such tests were institutionalized during the era of the military-backed President Suharto (1965-1998).

What happens to applicants and fiancées who "fail" the test?

Some applicants and fiancées, whose hymen were torn, still managed to join the armed forces or to marry their men. There are various reasons. Young women who failed the medical examination said they did not know whether it was related to their "virginity test" or other parts of the medical examination.

Others argued that they had had accidents when they were younger. A woman said she fell down from a book shelf when she was six years old. The doctor, who treated her, wrote a letter, stating that she had that accident.

Indeed she did not know it. Only when she was 15 years old did her mother give her that letter. "It might be important for you one day," she recalled her mother as saying. She was shocked.

Some male officers reportedly said that they had already had sex with their fiancées. They have no problems with the torn hymen. They got married. But there're also young women whose relationships were broken up because they refuse to take the discriminatory test.

What sort of experiences have the women interviewed by HRW made in this regard?

All of them said it's painful, humiliating, and discriminatory. They often asked, "Why men were not tested?" But some of them said there was nothing that they could do about it. A major said she was surprised to see the protest among policewomen against the test.

She never imagined military women and military wives would dare to challenge their own institution. But some women accept the test, believing that they're virgins. They believe that they need to be virgin to be military officers.

Last November, HRW revealed that Indonesia had also been conducting similar tests to filter female police recruits

What do you call on the Indonesian government to do?

There're already protests in Indonesia, involving the National Commission on Violence against Women as well as many women's rights NGOs and some policewomen, asking the government to stop the degrading and cruel test. Some ministers, including Health Minister Nila Moeloek, said it's outside their respective authorities to ban the test.

It involves some ministers including the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces and the National Police. Now it's up to President Joko Widodo to stop the test. He's obviously the boss over all of these government agencies. Human Rights Watch asks President Widodo to ban the practice.

Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008.

The interview was conducted by Gabriel Domínguez.

New path in The Hague is a reminder of Indonesia’s shame

Dutch News

When Jozias van Aartsen, the mayor of The Hague, unveiled the Munirpad (Munir Path) in a quiet neighbourhood on April 14, he did more than honour the slain Indonesian human rights defender Munir Thalib, writes Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch. 

The naming of the Munirpad was also an uncomfortable reminder to the Indonesian government of its failure to bring to justice those who had ordered Munir’s killing on September 7, 2004. Munir’s widow, Suciwati, told reporters before she left Jakarta to attend the ceremony: ‘It’s ironic when the Netherlands recognises [Munir’s] achievement, but Indonesia, his own country, gives impunity to the perpetrators [of his murder].’ 

Sceptical 

Suciwati has reason to be sceptical about the Indonesian government’s commitment to fully investigate Munir’s murder. Despite former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise in 2004 that finding Munir’s killers was ‘the test of our history,’ the government has failed to do so. 

 There is certainly no shortage of possible suspects. As Indonesia’s best-known human rights defender, Munir made many powerful enemies among people with abusive records. Munir founded the highly effective Commission for Disappeared Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) to campaign against enforced disappearances. In 2002, Munir established the Jakarta-based human rights research group Imparsial. 

Passion 

Underlying all of Munir’s work was a passionate pursuit of justice in a country whose three decades of authoritarian rule under Suharto had run roughshod over the rule of law and permitted the killers of more than 500,000 alleged ‘communists’ in 1965-66 to avoid prosecution for their heinous crimes. But that activism ended when Munir died from arsenic poisoning. 

The arsenic was allegedly added to his orange juice on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. An Indonesian police investigation resulted in the conviction of three Garuda employees. 

On December 20, 2005, a Jakarta court sentenced an off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who had moved Munir from economy to business class, to 14 years in prison for administering the arsenic. Pollycarpus was released on parole in 2014. 

An Indonesian court subsequently sentenced Indra Setiawan, Garuda’s then chief executive officer, and Rohanil Aini, Garuda’s then chief secretary, to one year jail terms for producing falsified documents that let Pollycarpus get on that flight. 

Evidence 

Despite those convictions, there is troubling evidence that the prosecutions of those three Garuda staff failed to uncover the full circumstances of Munir’s killing and that the masterminds remain at large. Sceptics point to the fact that Pollycarpus was also an agent for the State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara, or BIN). 

Despite allegations that linked the order for Munir’s murder to the agency’s former deputy director, major general Muchdi Purwopranjono, an Indonesian court cleared him of responsibility in Munir’s killing in December 2008 due to lack of evidence after trial proceedings dogged by allegations of witness intimidation. Activists have alleged that the government withheld key evidence during the trial, including recorded mobile phone conversations between Muchdi and Pollycarpus. 

Hampered 

In September 2009, Human Rights Watch said that the evidence presented during the Muchdi trial was compelling, but that the prosecution was hampered by the systematic retraction of sworn statements to the police and pressure on the South Jakarta court from Muchdi’s supporters. 

Witnesses withdrew statements they had made to the police, claiming to have forgotten basic facts, or failed to appear in court. Most were former or current intelligence officers or retired members of the military. 

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has an opportunity to correct the failure of his predecessor, Yudhoyono, to investigate Munir’s killing adequately. 

The president could start by ordering the National Police to surrender any evidence withheld or overlooked during the trials of both Pollycarpus and Muchdi, as well as investigating allegations of witness intimidation related to the dismissal of charges against Muchdi in 2008. 

If Widodo fails to act, the Munirpad in The Hague will remain a reminder of the long road to justice for Indonesia’s murdered rights defender Munir. 

Andreas Harsono is Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch.