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Letter to French President François Hollande

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Dear President Hollande,

We are writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch concerning your visit to Indonesia on March 29. France has long been a crucial voice around the globe in promoting respect for human rights. As the first French president to visit Indonesia in 30 years, you have a unique opportunity to urge the Indonesian government to address continuing human rights concerns and fulfill its international legal obligations. We encourage you to both publicly and privately press President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Indonesian officials on issues including freedom of religion, accountability for past human rights abuses, the death penalty, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.

Since taking office, President Jokowi’s rhetorical support for human rights has yet to translate into meaningful policy initiatives to address the country’s serious rights problems. Despite Jokowi’s voiced commitments on religious freedom, religious minorities continue to face discriminatory regulations and violent attacks by Islamist militant groups. Acts of religious intolerance and violations of religious freedom are on the rise. In early 2016, Indonesian security forces were complicit in the violent forced eviction of more than 7,000 members of the Gafatar religious community from their homes in Kalimantan, following which the administration issued a decree banning Gafatar activities. This March, three Gafatar leaders were sentenced to prison for up to five years under Indonesia’s blasphemy law.

In April 2016, the government broke a decades-long taboo on open discussion of the state-backed massacres of up to one million alleged communists and others in 1965-1966. However, the government has provided no details of an official accountability process. Jokowi’s decision in July 2016 to appoint as security minister retired general Wiranto, who was indicted by a United Nations-supported tribunal for crimes against humanity, has heightened concerns about his administration’s commitment to justice.

Beginning in January 2016, high-ranking Indonesian officials made a series of vitriolic anti-LGBT pronouncements, giving rise to increased threats, intimidation, and violence against LGBT activists and individuals, primarily by Islamist militants. Jokowi has failed to adequately address the discriminatory statements and policies issued by senior government and military officials that have fueled abuses toward the country’s LGBT population.

Jokowi has issued mixed messages on his support for the death penalty. The execution of convicted drug traffickers was a signature issue of Jokowi’s presidency, with 18 executions carried out since he took office. Yet he recently suggested that the Indonesian government may emulate European governments by moving toward abolishing the death penalty.

We urge you to raise these serious human rights concerns during your visit, and affirm that human rights are critical to France’s engagement with Indonesia. In strengthening its economic partnership with Indonesia, France should call on the government to create an environment in which the rights of all, particularly minorities and vulnerable groups, are protected and promoted.

Specifically, we ask that you press President Jokowi to:

  • Seek to amend or revoke regulations that discriminate against religious minorities or exacerbate bigotry in Indonesia, including the blasphemy law and the house of worship regulation.
  • Take immediate disciplinary action against all government officials, including cabinet members, governors, regents, and other officials who make statements or engage in actions that promote religious discrimination or condone violence against religious groups.
  • Seek criminal prosecution of government officials who incite violence against religious minorities.
  • Move forward with an official accountability process for the 1965-66 mass killings, including meaningful and public truth-telling efforts, redress for victims, and documentation of alleged mass grave sites.
  • Conduct all exhumations of mass grave sites and identification of victims with the assistance of international forensic experts with experience in mass grave recovery operations.
  • Ensure that members of the Indonesian security forces implicated in serious human rights violations, including those involving command responsibility, are credibly and impartially investigated and disciplined or prosecuted as appropriate.
  • Restore Indonesia’s unofficial moratorium on the death penalty and move toward eventual abolition.
  • Publicly condemn all major incidents of anti-LGBT violence and harassment that occur in Indonesia, acknowledge the scope and gravity of the problem, and commit to taking steps to end these abuses.
  • Order all provincial, district, and municipal governments to repeal discriminatory by-laws that violate international standards or contravene the Indonesian constitution.
  • Direct the Indonesian police internal affairs division to investigate incidents of police collusion with militant Islamist groups in attacks on LGBT people and activists, and hold those responsible accountable.
  • Order all ministries to rescind anti-LGBT edicts, and ask the Ministry of Health to publicly reject the assertion by the Indonesian Psychiatric Association that homosexuality is a diagnosable mental health condition.

Thank you for your consideration. We would be happy to further discuss these and other human rights issues with you and members of your administration.

Sincerely,

Bénédicte Jeannerod
France Director

Brad Adams
Asia Director


Indonesian Death Penalty Moratorium Needs Presidential Push

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Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo dropped fresh hints this week that he supports reinstatement of the official moratorium on the death penalty, but only if the Indonesian public supports the move. “Why not? But I must ask my people. If my people say OK, they say yes, I will start to prepare [to reinstate a moratorium].”

2015-dispatches-indonesia-kine

Catholic nuns pray beside the coffin of Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte at a funeral home in Jakarta, Indonesia April 29, 2015.

We’ve been here before. In November 2016, Jokowi suggested the Indonesian government might emulate European governments by moving toward abolishing the death penalty. At that time, Jokowi said his government was “very open to options” on death penalty alternatives, without elaborating. But since then, neither he nor his government have taken any serious steps to change Indonesia’s policy. On the contrary, in recent weeks Indonesia seems poised to execute up to six convicted drug traffickers from foreign countries on the prison island of Nusa Kambangan.

The gap between Jokowi’s rights-respecting rhetoric and the absence of policy measures to back it up is unsurprising. Jokowi has a well-earned reputation for talking the talk on human rights policies, but consistently failing to deliver. He’s stalled on accountability plans for past gross human rights violations, such as the massacres of 1965-66; failed to abolish discriminatory laws fostering religious intolerance; and lacked follow-through on promises of accountability for abuses in Papua.

Indonesia ended a four-year unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in March 2013, and Jokowi has made the execution of convicted drug traffickers a signature issue of his presidency. Jokowi has justified using the death penalty by saying drug traffickers on death row have “destroyed the future of the nation.” In December 2014, he told students that the death penalty for convicted drug traffickers was an “important shock therapy” for anyone who violates Indonesia’s drug laws. Since taking office in 2014, his government has executed 18 convicted drug traffickers, though no executions have taken place this year. The majority of those executed have been citizens of other countries, and Jokowi rejected their government’s calls for clemency, citing national sovereignty.

Jokowi should not hinge his action on so fundamental an issue as capital punishment on the vagaries of popular support. Instead, he should take this opportunity to demonstrate leadership and bolster his rhetorical support for a death penalty moratorium with real action. Indecision is no reason to impose an inherently cruel punishment.

Indonesia Permits Rare Papua Access to UN Health Rights Expert

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The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health did something remarkable last week: he traveled to the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.

Dainius Puras’ two-day trip to Papua, part of a two-week official visit, was notable for the simple fact the Indonesian government allowed it to happen. Given the government’s long history of blocking scrutiny of conditions in Papua by foreign media and international observers, including UN experts, this development may indicate a change in policy.

A woman who is infected with HIV prepares her medicines in a shelter house in Jayapura of the Indonesia Papua province November 27, 2008.

A woman who is infected with HIV prepares her medicines in a shelter house in Jayapura of the Indonesia Papua province November 27, 2008. 

In 2013, the government rejected the proposed visit of Frank La Rue, then-UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, because he insisted on travelling to Papua. The government has justified limiting international observers’ access to Papua on security grounds, but the reality is the government and the security forces are just unwilling to face criticism from nongovernmental organizations and the foreign media.

Puras’ observations about health conditions in Papua are a searing indictment of the government’s failings on public health. He singled out the fact that ethnic Papuans “are two times more likely to have HIV/AIDS than the rest of the population and new infections are on the rise.” He called for the development of “culturally sensitive” HIV/AIDS treatment in the region.

Other statistics are equally alarming: Papua has the lowest life expectancy in Indonesia and the country’s highest infant, child, and maternal mortality rates. Despite Papua’s glaring health service deficiencies, the government severely restricts access of international NGOs, including those that provide much-needed healthcare services. In August 2010, the government banned from Papua the Dutch international aid organization Cordaid. The government asserted the organization had assisted Papua pro-independence activists, an allegation Cordaid denied.

Puras’ concerns about health rights in Papua should be a wakeup call to the government that its current policies on health in Papua are seriously inadequate. The government should recognize that international NGOs – and allowing media to freely report in Papua – can play a crucial role in supporting official efforts to fill gaps in public health delivery systems. Permitting Puras’ visit will hopefully open the door to wider international access to Papua, so that the government can get support to address the appallingly poor health indicators of ethnic Papuans.

Indonesia: Release Gay Men at Risk of Torture

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A picture of an anti-LGBT demonstration.

Indonesian government officials made a series of anti-LGBT comments, resulting in proposals of laws which pose a serious threat to the rights and safety of LGBT Indonesians.

(New York – April 10, 2017) – Indonesian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release two men detained in Aceh province under a local ordinance that criminalizes homosexuality, Human Rights Watch said today.

On the night of March 28, 2017, unidentified vigilantes forcibly entered a home and brought two men found there to the police for allegedly having same-sex relations. The two men, in their twenties, have been detained at a Wilayatul Hisbah, a Sharia (Islamic law) police facility in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.  The chief inspector indicated that the men had confessed to being gay and would be detained for sentencing. Under Aceh’s Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayah), they face up to 100 lashes in public—a punishment that constitutes torture under international law.

“The arrest and detention of these two men underscores the abuse imbedded in Aceh’s discriminatory, anti-LGBT ordinances,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia division director at Human Right Watch. “These men had their privacy invaded in a frightening and humiliating manner and now face public torture for the ‘crime’ of their alleged sexual orientation.”

Indonesian government officials made a series of anti-LGBT comments, resulting in proposals of laws which pose a serious threat to the rights and safety of LGBT Indonesians.

Cell phone video footage of the raid, apparently shot by one of the vigilantes and circulating on social media, shows one of the two men visibly distressed as he calls for help on his cellphone. “Please brother, please stop,” one of the men says in the video. “My parents want to talk to you, they can pick me up.” Aceh’s Sharia ordinances empower members of the public as well as the special Sharia police to publicly identify and detain anyone suspected of violating its rules.

Aceh’s Sharia police have previously detained lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.  In October 2015, Sharia police arrested two women, ages 18 and 19, on suspicion of being lesbians for embracing in public and detained them for three nights at a Sharia police facility in Banda Aceh.  Sharia police repeatedly attempted to compel the two women to identify other suspected LGBT people in Aceh by showing them photographs of individuals taken from social media accounts.

Over the past decade, Aceh’s parliament has gradually adopted Sharia-inspired ordinances that criminalize non-hijab-wearing women, drinking alcohol, gambling, and extramarital sexual relations, all of which can be enforced against non-Muslims. Aceh’s LGBT population is also vulnerable to Aceh’s 2014 Criminal Code that bars liwath (sodomy) and musahabah (lesbian sexual action). Aceh province imposed the Sharia punishment of multiple lashes of a cane against 339 people in 2016.

Under national legislation stemming from a 2001 “Special Status” agreement, Aceh is the only one of Indonesia’s 34 provinces that can legally adopt bylaws derived from Sharia. Human Rights Watch opposes all laws or government policies that are discriminatory or otherwise violate basic rights. Under Indonesian law, the national home affairs minister can review and repeal local bylaws, including those adopted in Aceh. In June, Minister of Home Affairs Tjahjo Kumolo backtracked on his announced commitment to abolish abusive Sharia regulations in the country.

Local government officials in Aceh have actively stoked homophobia, Human Rights Watch said. In 2012 then-Banda Aceh Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddinadvocated harsh punishments for homosexuality, telling the media: “If we ignore it, it will be like an iceberg…Even if one case of homosexuality [is] found, it’s already a problem...[W]e are really concerned about the behavior and activities of the gay community, because their behavior is deviating from the Islamic Shariah.” In 2013, after Illiza was elected mayor of Banda Aceh, she told reporters that “homosexuals are encroaching on our city.” In February 2016, she announced she would create a “special team” to make the public more aware of the “threat of LGBT” and to “train” LGBT people to “return to a normal life.”

In April 2016, four United Nations special rapporteurs wrote to the Indonesian government expressing concerns about the abusive enforcement of Sharia against LGBT people, and sought the government’s response. The government has yet to respond.

Aceh’s discriminatory Sharia ordinances violate fundamental human rights guaranteed under core international human rights treaties to which Indonesia is party. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Indonesia ratified in 2005, protects the rights to privacy and family (article 17), and freedom of religion (article 18) and expression (article 19). The covenant prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, and other status such as sexual orientation (article 2). It also prohibits punishments such as whipping that amount to torture or cruel and inhuman punishment (article 7). 

Anti-LGBT incidents across Indonesia have significantly increased since January 2016 and included police raids on suspected gatherings of gay men, attacks on LGBT activists, and vitriolic anti-LGBT rhetoric from officials and politicians. In October, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo broke his long silence on escalating anti-LGBT rhetoric by defending the rights of the country’s LGBT community. He declared that “the police must act” against actions by bigoted groups or individuals to harm LGBT people or deny them their rights, and that “there should be no discrimination against anyone.” However, Jokowi has not backed up that statement with action.

“President Jokowi should urgently intervene is this case to demonstrate his stated commitment to ending discrimination against LGBT people,” Kine said.  “Jokowi then needs to act to eliminate Aceh’s discriminatory ordinances so these outrageous arrests don’t happen again.”

Indonesia’s Jokowi Fails to Abolish Abusive Sharia Laws

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The rights of all Indonesians are at greater risk following a Constitutional Court ruling this week that the central government could no longer repeal local Sharia (Islamic law) ordinances adopted in the country.

In recent years, the government had begun analyzing local regulations for compliance with Indonesia’s secular constitution, and pledged to repeal those that didn’t. “I want to underline that Indonesia is not a religiously-based country,” the home affairs minister said in 2015. But the government was tepid in its approach, steering clear of controversy by leaving Sharia ordinances intact.

A sharia police officer escorts women caught wearing tight pants during a street raid in Arongan Lambalek district in Indonesia's Aceh province on May 26, 2010.

A sharia police officer escorts women caught wearing tight pants during a street raid in Arongan Lambalek district in Indonesia's Aceh province on May 26, 2010.

What a missed opportunity.

The Constitutional Court on Wednesday deprived the Home Ministry of the power to abolish problematic local regulations – depriving the government of a check on those ordinances that threaten universal rights to freedom of expression and association. It also exposes the failure of the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to turn its rhetoric about scrapping laws that flagrantly violate the rights of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people into reality.

While Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo claimed to have annulled more than 3,000 problematic local ordinances in 2015 and 2016, he later conceded that those eliminated only impacted investment and did not include abusive Sharia regulations. Those canceled were “problematic regional regulations” for violating the country’s credo of “unity in diversity,” not regulations that violated fundamental rights.

Now, after years of central government foot-dragging, the Constitutional Court has ruled that the central government cannot revoke any of those local ordinances. 

President Jokowi has said that he respects the court’s judgment, adding that he’ll find other ways to improve investment. But he will also need to explain how he’ll protect threatened minorities from abusive Sharia ordinances. Lawsuits challenging the regulations can still be appealed to the Supreme Court, Indonesia’s highest court. Currently two men in Aceh are awaiting a public flogging sentence for homosexuality under local Sharia-inspired laws. The court ruling does not let Jokowi off the hook for failing to uphold Indonesia’s international legal obligations.

Jokowi will need, for the first time, to demonstrate real leadership against a rising tide of intolerance in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Minorities in Indonesia under threat of abusive Sharia statutes need a decisive signal from the president that he will ensure that “unity in diversity” extends to all Indonesians.

UK: Tobacco Giant Should Respect Human Rights

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(London) – British American Tobacco (BAT) should strengthen its processes for identifying and addressing human rights risks in its global supply chain, Human Rights Watch and Swedwatch said today in an open letter to shareholders. At the company’s annual shareholder meeting on April 26, 2017, shareholders will have an opportunity to press the company to take action and to increase the transparency of its efforts.

An 8-year-old girl sorts and bundles tobacco leaves by hand near Sampang, East Java.

An 8-year-old girl sorts and bundles tobacco leaves by hand near Sampang, East Java.

Human Rights Watch and Swedwatch described the human rights concerns they identified in their research on farms supplying BAT in Indonesia and Bangladesh, respectively. Human Rights Watch has documented child labor and other human rights abuses in tobacco farming in several countries, and since 2014 has urged the largest global tobacco companies, including BAT, to improve human rights protections and monitoring in their supply chains.

“The global tobacco supply chain has serious risks of human rights abuses including child labor, as well as health and safety risks,” said Jane Buchanan, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Shareholders can press BAT to do a better job identifying and addressing human rights abuses to ensure that the company’s profits don’t come at the expense of vulnerable workers.”

In a May 2016 report, Human Rights Watch found that thousands of children in Indonesia, some as young as 8, are exposed to serious hazards while working on tobacco farms, including some that supply BAT. Many child workers mixed or sprayed toxic pesticides and many suffered nausea, vomiting, or other symptoms consistent with nicotine poisoning, a result of absorbing nicotine through their skin.

Human Rights Watch had previously documented hazardous child labor on tobacco farms in the United States, including in areas where a BAT supplier, Reynolds American, was purchasing tobacco leaf. Human Rights Watch has urged BAT and other tobacco companies to prohibit children from all work involving direct contact with tobacco.

The Stockholm-based Swedwatch, in a June 2016 report, found widespread and hazardous child labor, health problems suffered by families involved in tobacco production, and other serious human rights problems in Bangladesh. Interviewees told Swedwatch that children’s work on tobacco farms interfered with their education.

In describing how the company responded to the two reports, BAT Chief Executive Nicandro Durante said, in a March 2017 sustainability report: “We conduct detailed investigations, take appropriate action to address any issues identified, and report transparently on the progress and outcomes.”

The groups raised concerns about the rigor and credibility of BAT’s monitoring practices, and its transparency in publishing details about supply chain audits.

International human rights norms like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights state that companies are responsible for identifying and addressing human rights abuses in their global supply chains, and reporting publicly on their efforts.

“Without transparency, human rights abuses go undetected and are not remedied,” said Alice Blondel, director of Swedwatch. “BAT should carry out rigorous internal and third-party monitoring and publish details on the content of the assessments and results.”

Open Letter to British American Tobacco Shareholders

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To British American Tobacco Shareholders:

We write on behalf of the nongovernmental organizations Human Rights Watch and Swedwatch to draw your attention to serious human rights abuses we have documented in British American Tobacco’s (BAT) supply chain in the last year. Our research raises questions about whether the company has taken adequate steps to protect the human rights of the people farming the tobacco that goes into its products. At the Annual General Meeting this week, shareholders have an opportunity to ask questions about the company’s human rights due diligence practices, transparency, and accountability.

In recent weeks, BAT released a new sustainability report. The sustainability report stated, “Tobacco remains the most essential part of our product and the farmers who grow it are absolutely crucial to the success of our business.” But we have seen that these very farmers and hired farmworkers face grim realities in countries where BAT purchases tobacco. The farming families BAT describes as “crucial” to its success include young children and adults who get sick from the work. Many have little or no safety training, and lack even basic equipment to protect themselves from the risks of nicotine exposure, including Green Tobacco Sickness.

A report published last May by Human Rights Watch showed how children as young as 8 risk their health working on small-scale tobacco farms in Indonesia, including some that supply BAT. Based on interviews with more than 130 child tobacco workers, the report found thousands of children—maybe tens of thousands, or more—are exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides while working on Indonesian tobacco farms, and many of them get sick from the work. Half of the children interviewed said they suffered nausea, vomiting, headaches, or dizziness while handling tobacco—common symptoms consistent with nicotine poisoning, which happens when workers absorb nicotine through their skin.

“After too long working in tobacco, I get a stomachache and feel like vomiting,” said one 13-year-old boy interviewed for the report. He likened the feeling to motion sickness: “It’s just like when you’re on a trip, and you’re in a car swerving back and forth.”

Farmers contracted with BAT’s export company in Indonesia did not understand the risks to child workers and could not clearly articulate the company’s expectations on child labor during interviews with Human Rights Watch.

In June, the Stockholm-based organization Swedwatch published a report based on research in three of BAT’s tobacco cultivation areas in Bangladesh. Drawing on direct observations and interviews with over 150 men, women, and children, the report found widespread and hazardous child labor, adverse health impacts on families involved in tobacco production, and other severe human rights problems.

Swedwatch found family poverty put additional pressure on children to do work that could be harmful to their health or interfere with their education. A 16-year-old boy who worked as a day laborer on a farm contracted with BAT told Swedwatch he sometimes worked 15 or 16 hours a day in the high season. “During this time I cannot go to school and I miss many classes,” he said. “This is a very important year for me as I have to sit for the national exams next year. But there is no option for me but to help my parents.” A teacher in one of BAT’s cultivation areas described how work in tobacco farming affects students: “The work in tobacco farming makes the children weak, and even those who are attending school are unable to concentrate on their studies. They lag behind in the class and lose interest to study further."

In its response to Swedwatch’s findings, BAT underlined the benefits of tobacco farming and stated, “we remain of the view that the report as a whole is not representative of the reality on the ground.”

Human Rights Watch had previously documented hazardous child labor on tobacco farms in the United States, including in areas where BAT supplier Reynolds American purchased tobacco leaf. In a 2011 report, the North Carolina-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Oxfam documented human rights abuses, including child labor and violations of the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining on US tobacco farms. FLOC has repeatedly urged Reynolds American and BAT to take additional steps to protect the labor rights of workers in its supply chain, and ensure on-the-ground mechanisms for fair negotiations on tobacco prices and working conditions. BAT and Reynolds American are undergoing a US$49 billion merger this year. 

Our research shows BAT, like many other tobacco companies, has not done nearly enough to identify human rights risks and impacts, and to shoulder its responsibility to remediate violations affecting farmers and workers in the supply chain “most essential” to its product. Under the framework established by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, tobacco companies are responsible for identifying and addressing human rights abuses in their operations. They should report publicly on those efforts.

In its recent sustainability report, BAT acknowledged that, “Agricultural supply chains are particularly susceptible to human rights violations,” and that 60 percent of child labor worldwide occurs in agriculture. Yet in Bangladesh, the company maintained that its own monitoring program found, “zero reported incidences of child labour in tobacco growing,” raising questions about the rigor and effectiveness of its monitoring practices.

BAT makes limited information about its tobacco supply chain monitoring program publicly available.

Under the company’s Sustainable Tobacco Programme, BAT suppliers complete self-assessments annually, where they grade themselves on their own performance on all of the company’s most important human rights and sustainability criteria. Unsurprisingly, BAT suppliers tend to perform extremely well on their own self-assessments. In 2014, for example, BAT’s suppliers in Indonesia got an average score of 90 percent on the child labor section of these self-assessments. The company publishes no detailed information about the specific criteria used, the content of these assessments, or the meaning of these scores.

Every three years, third-party monitors perform an in-country audit and visit a handful of farms to check for abuses. The scope, methodology, and results of the third-party audits are not made public.

In response to the Swedwatch report, the company stated that it had commissioned an assessment of “human rights-related impacts of tobacco growing” at country-level in Bangladesh. In describing how the company responded to our reports on human rights abuses in Indonesia and Bangladesh, BAT Chief Executive Nicandro Durante, said, “We conduct detailed investigations, take appropriate action to address any issues identified, and report transparently on the progress and outcomes.

At this week’s Annual General Meeting, shareholders have an opportunity to push the company to live up to those words, and to examine its human rights policies and monitoring practices, and the transparency and relevance of its public reporting. They deserve clear answers about steps the company is taking to ensure its products are not tainted by human rights abuses. 

British American Tobacco should:

  • Ensure that all contracts and business agreements with suppliers of any size include specific requirements to respect human rights throughout the company’s supply chain, including prohibiting the use of child labor anywhere in the supply chain, specifically any work in which children under 18 have direct contact with tobacco in any form;
  • Collect data and qualitative information about farming communities and farms each season and utilize this information to identify potential human rights risks, including child labor and obstacles to education for children among others;
  • Conduct regular and rigorous monitoring in the supply chain for child labor and other human rights abuses. Human rights impact assessments should include meaningful consultation with stakeholders and vulnerable groups;
  • Engage entities with expertise in human rights and child labor to conduct regular third party monitoring in the supply chain;
  • Publish detailed information about internal and external monitoring in a timely manner. Credible public reporting should include such elements as the terms of reference for the monitors, methodology, indicators used in evaluation, scope of the evaluation (including geography and numbers of farms visited, and the numbers of farmers, family members, including children, and hired workers interviewed), detailed results, and other elements published in a form and frequency consistent with the guidance on transparency and accountability in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights;
  • Ensure access to remediation when human rights problems are identified. Establish and enforce penalties for suppliers who violate the company’s human rights policy. The penalties should be sufficiently severe and consistently implemented so as to have a dissuasive effect. Discontinue business with suppliers that repeatedly violate the company’s human rights policy;
  • Ensure that all tobacco leaf purchases can be traced to the specific farms where it was grown;
  • Make details on tobacco sourcing available to the public, investors and consumers by disclosing supply countries, suppliers, and size and location of cultivation areas;
  • Continue to engage in collaborative initiatives to address hazardous child labor in global supply chains. Such initiatives are a supplement to, not a replacement for, the company’s individual human rights due diligence across all its global leaf operations.

Shareholders can push BAT to take more meaningful action to protect human rights in its global operations.

For further information, please contact Human Rights Watch in New York (hrwpress@hrw.org; +1-212-216-1832) or London (tilianm@hrw.org; +44 (0) 20-7618-4777), or Swedwatch in Stockholm (jenny@swedwatch.org; +46 (0)8-525-203-75).

Sincerely,

 

Jane Buchanan

Associate Director, Children's Rights

Human Rights Watch

 

Arvind Ganesan

Director, Business and Human Rights

Human Rights Watch

 

Alice Blondel

Director

Swedwatch

 

Indonesia: Journalists Under Assault

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(Jakarta, April 26, 2017) - The Indonesian government should adopt measures to ensure that state security forces who physically attack journalists are suspended and appropriately prosecuted, Human Rights Watch said today. New data and case research shows a disturbing increase in assaults on journalists in the past two years.

A police officer kicks photographer Ikshan Arham of the Rakyat Sulsel newspaper during a  student protest at Makassar State University on November 13, 2014. Police allegedly assaulted 10 journalists that day, but no officers have been prosecuted for those

A police officer kicks photographer Ikshan Arham of the Rakyat Sulsel newspaper during a  student protest at Makassar State University on November 13, 2014. Police allegedly assaulted 10 journalists that day, but no officers have been prosecuted for those abuses. 

Irina Bokova, the director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which chose Jakarta as global host for its annual World Press Freedom Day commemoration on May 3, 2017, should use the occasion to publicly address the increase in assaults on journalists and urge President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to take more decisive action in response.

“World Press Freedom Day should be a time to celebrate the role journalists play in society, but in Indonesia the focus too often is on reporters’ fears,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Indonesian government should reverse the dangerous deterioration of press freedom in the country and prosecute security force personnel who physically assault journalists.”

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), a nongovernmental union, reported that there were 78 incidents in 2016 of violent attacks on journalists, including by security forces, compared with 42 in 2015, and 40 in 2014. AJI found that the attackers have been brought to justice in only a very few of those 78 incidents. Indonesia’s 1999 Press Law provides explicit protection for journalists, including up to two years in prison and fines of 500 million rupiah (US$44,000) for anyone who physically attacks a journalist.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 journalists and six human rights advocates in Balikpapan, Banten, Jakarta, Jayapura, Makassar, Medan, Padang, Pekanbaru, and Surabaya. They described an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship in many newsrooms due to abuses and threats by security forces and local authorities that go unpunished and that, most of the time, are not even rigorously investigated.

The abuses include destruction of journalists’ equipment (especially cameras and memory cards), harassment, intimidation, threats, and assault. These abuses have occurred in all of Indonesia’s major islands, typically in provincial capitals and smaller cities. They are less common in Jakarta, the national capital, where journalists are more aware of their rights and are supported by stronger professional organizations.

Human Rights Watch investigated three incidents of violent assaults involving five journalists. All had sought resolution of their cases and were concerned about possible reprisals for publicly disclosing details of their abuse.

The provinces of Papua and West Papua – (commonly referred to jointly as “Papua”) – remain particularly difficult places for both Indonesian and foreign journalists. Papuan journalists in particular face harassment, intimidation, and at times violence from security forces and pro-independence forces when they report on corruption, rights abuses, land grabs, and other sensitive topics. Indonesian authorities continue to restrict access by foreign journalists to Papua on spurious “security” grounds despite Jokowi’s May 10, 2015, announcement that accredited foreign media would have unimpeded access to Papua.

Indonesia’s considerable gains in media freedom since the fall of authoritarian President Suharto in 1998 will not be sustainable if the government does not respond promptly and vigorously when journalists and media organizations are harassed or suffer violence, Human Rights Watch said. To ensure that laws protecting journalists are enforced, the Jokowi government should insist that state agencies, notably the police and armed forces, adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward physical abuse of journalists.

Members of those forces suspected of assaulting a journalist should be suspended from the force and, as evidence warrants, criminally prosecuted. Any official who engages in abusive efforts to compel private settlements of assault cases should also be relieved of duty. Finally, the government should create appropriate educational programs on media freedom for government officials, police, and military personnel.

UNESCO and other international donors should support the efforts of nongovernmental media advocacy groups, particularly those seeking to open offices in Indonesia’s provinces, to help educate journalists about their rights and legal avenues for accountability when those rights are violated, Human Rights Watch said. UNESCO should also support the Indonesian Press Council in conducting a public education campaign on freedom of expression.

“The Indonesian government has an obligation to address the security threats to journalists so that they don’t risk physical violence for doing their jobs,” Kine said. “World Press Freedom Day observances in Jakarta will be a cynical public relations exercise unless the Indonesian government, with UNESCO’s help, puts media freedom at the top of the agenda.”
 

Attacks on Journalists

Media freedom in Indonesia has improved significantly in the nearly two decades since the end of the authoritarian rule of President Suharto. Indonesia now has hundreds of television stations (including cable), more than 2,000 radio stations, and 1,000 newspapers, as well as web-based media outlets. Those outlets are owned and operated by 13 media conglomerates. The number of reporters has increased from about 15,000 during the Suharto era to at least 100,000 today. However, in recent years there has been an uptick in reports of harassment and intimidation of journalists, and, more recently, a sharp increase in reported cases of physical assaults on journalists.

The following cases detail the risks that reporters can face when covering sensitive stories and the failure of the security forces and the justice system to provide accountability.

Iqbal Lubis, Tempo Group photographer
Vincent Waldy, Metro TV videographer
Attacked by police officers covering student demonstration in Makassar, November 13, 2014

On November 13, 2014, Iqbal Lubis, a photographer for the Tempo Group, went to the campus of Makassar State University to photograph student protests against the Jokowi government’s decision to raise the price of gasoline. The protest had been going on for about a week.

The protests that day devolved into violence, with students throwing stones at several hundred police. The police – with full riot gear, body shields, batons, teargas, and anti-riot vehicles – had deployed on the campus perimeter to ensure the protests did not spill out into the surrounding neighborhood.

Lubis told Human Rights Watch said that on the afternoon of November 13, assembled police were informed via two-way radio that students had shot Makassar’s deputy police chief, Totok Lisdiarto, with an arrow.

The police became angry, with some shouting “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Lubis said that hundreds of police entered the campus and began chasing the students, who tried to flee. The police kicked over motorcycles parked on the campus and smashed the windshields of parked cars. They entered classrooms and ordered students to leave. Some police prevented their colleagues from smashing campus windows. Lubis said that he along with more than a dozen other journalists followed the police as they advanced deeper into the campus. Some police shouted, “Arrest! Arrest!”

Police punched and kicked an elderly man students identified as a deputy dean. As police handcuffed the man and led him to a nearby police car, several female students started crying and screaming. Lubis, along with Vincent Waldy of Metro TV, left the main group of journalists and saw police officers surround a group of students under a tree. The police told the female students to leave and began to punch and kick the sole male student. Lubis took photos as police beat the student, ripping the student’s shirt. Lubis said:

Suddenly, a police shield hit my camera. I told the policeman [who hit me] that I was a journalist. I showed them my press card. But more police officers [approached]. I recognized their uniforms: Brimob [Mobile Brigade] and Sabhara [Anti-Riot] police. They hit me with their bare hands and their shields. I used my hands to deflect most of the beatings to my head. It saved me from serious injuries. I only got bruises on my hands.

Waldy tried to stop police from beating Lubis, telling them he was a journalist. Lubis took the opportunity to run away, and police then began hitting Waldy. Waldy said:

I approached Iqbal [Lubis] and dragged him away [from the police]. I said that we were journalists. I tried to stop the police pushing Iqbal. Iqbal managed to run. Suddenly a Brimob officer hit me from the left and I was immediately bleeding from my forehead. I did not see the person or what he used to beat me. My guess is it was an anti-riot shield. It was heavy and big. I momentarily lost consciousness and fell to the ground.

Several other journalists approached and took photos of Waldy being beaten. Others tried to protect Waldy. Lubis said:

Police shouted, “No photo! No photo!” I kept running away but two Brimob officers chased me. A third Brimob officer stopped me. But another cameraman, Ikhsan Arham, shouted that I was a journalist. One officer punched Arham, who became emotional. Arham said if [the police] wanted to fight, they should have a one-on-one fight. His statement apparently changed the police [attitude]. Those Brimob let me go. Arham told me that Waldy was bleeding and had been rushed to a hospital.

One of Waldy’s colleagues took him to nearby Faisal Hospital, where doctors closed the gash on his forehead with five stitches. Encouraged by his colleagues to report the attack to the police, that evening he and an adviser from a nongovernment legal group went to the Makassar police station. Two weeks later the police summoned him again to give more information about the attack. The police asked him to identify the attacker, but Waldy could not because he had not seen his assailant.

Lubis also sought redress for his injuries. He said he could identify one of the five or more police officers who attacked him because other journalists had recorded his name badge in video and photographs.

The following day, November 14, police summoned Lubis to the Makassar police precinct to make a formal complaint against the police who assaulted him. Representatives of the Alliance of Independent Journalists and the Indonesian Photojournalists Association accompanied him. Three days later, police summoned Lubis to repeat his testimony, which he did on November 19. At that session, police investigators asked him 22 questions about the incident.

For a month afterward, a coalition of journalist and student groups staged daily protests demanding accountability for Lubis. But false rumors circulated that Lubis and the other journalists assaulted on November 13 had benefited from an informal agreement with the Makassar police that included replacing the journalists’ damaged cameras in exchange for not pressing charges. Lubis said:

I have not met the police chief since the incident. I borrowed my friends’ cameras to keep on working. I am just a freelancer. I get my pay per photo. In the next three months, I avoided the Makassar police precinct. I am traumatized. Until now there has been no trial of the police officers who beat the students and journalists.

He said in March 2017 that there has been no movement in his case and the police who attacked him have not been punished.

Waldy similarly has said he heard nothing about prosecutions of police for the beatings:

Until now there’s been no follow up from the police. I have learned my lesson. It’s better to be extremely careful when covering the police. They can attack you without any reason. It was chaotic. We journalists have to take care of ourselves.

Fadjriani Langgeng, the director of the legal group, the Press Legal Aid Institute (LBH Pers) in  Makassar, said her office documented police assaults on November 13 on 10 journalists, including from media outlets Metro TV, Tempo, Celebes TV, and the Rakyat Sulsel daily newspaper. She said that the lack of police response to their complaints means “the cases are going nowhere.”

Array Argus, Tribune (Tribun Medan) daily reporter
Andri Syafrin Poerba, MNC Group cameraman
Beaten by military personnel while covering land dispute in Medan, August 15, 2016

On August 15, 2016, Array Argus from the Tribune in Medan covered a land rights protest by residents of the city’s Sarirejo district near the Soewondo Air Force base. The dispute over 5,000 hectares of land hinged on the Air Force’s rejection of a Supreme Court ruling that the disputed land belonged to the residents and could not be used for a multistory residential building

Argus went to the protest site with Teddy Akbari, a reporter for the Sumut Pos daily, at about 3 p.m. At the edge of the protest site they encountered a woman who tearfully claimed that Air Force personnel had “kidnapped” her son. While they interviewed the woman, military trucks arrived on the scene and soldiers in uniform began using batons to disperse protesting residents, Argus said. A uniformed Air Force officer approached Argus and demanded to see his official identity card, which Argus gave him. A nearby Air Force officer suddenly shouted: “That was the person!” pointing at Argus. Argus said:

They suddenly started punching and kicking me. I heard someone shout that I had taken their photo. I ran away into a small alley but it was a dead end. [Several Air Force officers] grabbed my hair. They kicked me. They beat me with their batons. They kept on shouting, “You took the photos! You took the photos!” I shouted that I did not take their photos. I fell on my back and they stomped their boots on my chest. They seized my cell phone and left.

Argus walked back to the intersection and encountered a Military Police officer who returned Argus’s phone and shouted, “You go! Get out of here!” Argus then saw the Air Force officers who had assaulted him leaving the area on foot.

Journalists arriving at the scene helped Argus get to a nearby hospital, Mitra Sejati. Doctors there gave him emergency treatment from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. A detailed medical examination revealed that Argus had several bruised ribs and internal bleeding in his right arm. They gave him oxygen. When he asked hospital staff to provide a medical statement specifying his injuries, they informed him that the police had to make the request. Argus then called the Medan Baru police, whose jurisdiction includes the Sarirejo area, and asked them to direct the hospital to issue the report. But a senior police officer refused, saying that the incident was within the jurisdiction of the Air Force and directed Argus to get the request from Air Force Military Police.

Three days later, on August 18, representatives of the nongovernmental legal advocacy organization LBH Medan, AJI Medan, and the Jakarta-based Press Council accompanied Argus to report the assault to the Air Force Military Police. The Military Police issued a request addressed to the Air Force hospital for a medical statement detailing Argus’ injuries.

Argus underwent the required examination later that day. The Air Force hospital subsequently issued a copy of Argus’ medical statement to the Air Force Military Police, but refused without explanation to give Argus a copy.

Over the next month, Argus went to the Air Force Military Police headquarters three more times at the authorities’ request to testify about the attack and his injuries. They asked him if he recognized any of his attackers. Argus gave them the names from the badge of one of his attackers and the Military Police officer who had returned his phone.

In November 2016, after Argus had testified for a fourth time at Military Police headquarters, a Military Police commander, Maj. Nicolas Sinaga, said two Air Force personnel were suspects, but would not divulge their names. Major Sinaga said he would send the dossiers to the military prosecutor in Medan. Argus learned from other sources that the attacker whose badge he had seen was one of the two suspects. However, Human Rights Watch has not been able to obtain information about any further progress in identifying and prosecuting the Air Force personnel who assaulted Argus.

Andri Syafrin Poerba, a cameraman for the MNC Group, arrived at the demonstration shortly after 3 p.m. and started taking photographs of the protesters and the soldiers. Poerba said that several soldiers suddenly surrounded him. One kicked him in the head. Poerba shouted “Journalist!” and showed them his press card. Two soldiers in jungle camouflage uniforms grabbed his arms while a third took his press card away. He said:

They dragged me to a store. They did not care. They punched me with their fists. They kicked me with their boots. They used batons against me. I lost count how many times they punched, kicked, and hit me with batons. They seized my Sony camera. I saw them taking my camera to an Air Force officer, in light blue shirt, standing nearby. After about five to eight minutes of being assaulted, I managed to get on my feet and ran toward the nearby [protesting] residents. I was bleeding from my forehead, my chin and my arms.

When Poerba’s brother took him to Mitra Sejati Hospital, staff refused to admit him. Poerba believes they feared reprisals from the Air Force. Poerba then went to Royal Prima Hospital, where doctors diagnosed several broken ribs. Poerba was hospitalized for a week.

On August 18, Poerba’s wife reported the assault to the Air Force Military Police. Poerba, after he left the hospital in September, filed an official complaint with the Medan Military Police. The Military Police wanted to know how many soldiers had assaulted him, their identities and if there were witnesses to the attack. Poerba said he told them that:

I did not recognize their faces or names. I used my hands to cover my head. There were between five and eight soldiers assaulting me. They wore only military T-shirts – no name badges.

Poerba said that after he filed his complaint, the Military Police never contacted him again. The Air Force spokesman returned the wallet and cell phone that had been taken from him during the assault, but not his camera or press card. Poerba said the attack had inflicted lingering physical and psychological trauma:

Where is the trial? Are we talking about impunity here? Are we talking about covering up here? I am still not able to work. I am still getting alternative medical treatment with herbs and massages [for pain in my ribs and my head]. I began to do this a month after I left the hospital. I was not only bruised but also suffered nerve damage [and other injuries] to my head, both arms and hip. My wife found blood on my pillow on the third day of my hospitalization. I used to be an active journalist, but now I have to stay home. That’s not to mention the psychological problems. Sometimes I sob at night when seeing my children sleeping.

Sonny Misdianto, Net TV journalist
Assaulted by military personnel in Madiun, October 2, 2016

On October 2, 2016, at about 2 p.m., Sonny Misdianto was riding his motorcycle in downtown Madiun when he noticed that the Teratai martial arts carnival had just ended and that participants and spectators were leaving the area. Because it was raining, he stopped near a row of stores, waiting for the rain to stop.

Young martial arts enthusiasts were loudly revving their motorcycles and doing wheelies down the street. As Misdianto watched, one of those motorcycles suddenly went through a red light at the intersection and hit a woman. Misdianto immediately grabbed his camera and began filming the scene of the accident.

Moments later, about 20 uniformed members of the Madiun-based 501st Raider Battalion of Kostrad, an elite strategic reserve command unit, ran toward the intersection. Misdianto said that he thought these soldiers intended to help the woman. Instead, the soldiers, who were bearing nunchuck martial arts weapons and plastic pipes filled with sand, assaulted the martial arts enthusiasts who had gathered at the scene of the accident to try to help the injured woman. Misdianto said a soldier suddenly came up to him and asked, “Hey, why are you recording?”

I said, “I’m a journalist.” I showed him my press card around my neck. He said, “Why are you recording? You’re wrong. You have no right to record. Stupid journalist!”

Misdianto said one of the soldiers grabbed him and they forced him into a nearby store, away from the intersection where the soldiers were still assaulting the martial arts enthusiasts. The soldiers demanded that Misdianto delete the files on his video camera. He said that when he refused, they kept insisting, punching and kicking him. One soldier hit Misdianto’s head with his nunchucks, causing him to momentarily lose consciousness. Another hit him on his right cheek. A third kicked him in the back. They forced him to open his camera and took out its memory card. They destroyed the memory card and deliberately broke his camera.

A Military Police officer who was passing by rescued Misdianto from his attackers and took him by motorcycle to Madiun’s Army Military Police Command. There, the deputy military commander demanded that Misdianto delete all photos from his phone. Misdianto said he thought he did not have any other option so he deleted the photos.

While he was there, Misdianto reported the attack to his Net TV supervisors, who decided to file criminal charges against the 501st Raider Battalion. While Misdianto was at the Military Police office, journalists from other media outlets took pictures of his injuries and interviewed him. The Military Police officers, visibly concerned about the media exposure, ushered Misdianto into a separate room and barred journalists from entering.

At 5 p.m. a senior police officer arrived at the Military Police office and asked Misdianto to go with him into his car. Misdianto said:

I told him that I had injuries. My head was spinning, I had bruises all over my body. He brought me to the emergency unit at the Madiun police precinct in which I got my first medical treatment. The [officer] later wanted to talk to me privately. He said, “Please don’t go ahead [with the criminal charges].”

Misdianto said the officer tried to give him an envelope that he believed had money inside, but declined. He said he wanted prosecution of the case to continue.

Misdianto said a military officer from the 501st Raider Battalion visited him later at his home, saying he wanted to resolve the case via an informal restitution process rather than by criminal charges. He urged Misdianto not to press charges against his unit, telling him, “We have known each other for a long time.”

While Misdianto spoke with the military officer, he got a phone call from his father, who lives a two-hour drive away in the town of Ponorogo. His father told him that two soldiers had just visited his home and asked him to show them his official identification documents and about his relationship with Misdianto. Misdianto asked the officer at his home why the military in Ponorogo to gone to visit his father. The officer denied it was his initiative, but admitted the Military Police  was responsible. Later that evening, Military Police came to Misdianto’s home and seized his video camera, ostensibly as evidence.

At about 8 p.m., Misdianto and a colleague went to the Madiun police precinct and filed a criminal complaint about his attack. But the police told Misdianto that civilian police had no jurisdiction over the matter and referred him to the Military Police. Misdianto and his colleague returned to the Military Police office and filed a complaint over the objections of the officers, who wanted to resolve the case informally. The next day Misdianto was required to return to the office and re-file his complaint after being told there had been a “technical error” in his first complaint.

Later that day, Misdianto’s relatives told him that men with military-style crewcuts passed by his house, while other men suddenly appeared in a rice field behind his house. For the rest of the week, military officers phoned him four or five times a day, pressing him to drop criminal charges and accept an informal restitution process. The military also called his Net TV supervisors in Surabaya and Jakarta to make the same request.

Net TV transferred Misdianto to Surabaya for several days to avoid the pressure of the criminal case in Madiun. During that time, his wife in Madiun kept reporting the presence of mysterious men with crewcuts around their house. She said the men tried to give the appearance of being joggers, scrap metal scavengers or local farmers, but that she felt she was under surveillance, he said.

Over a 10-day period, Misdianto and his family received more than 100 calls from various military officers. This pressure ultimately induced Misdianto to drop criminal charges against his attackers and accept the informal restitution process.

A week later, from Surabaya, Misdianto went with a Net TV executive to meet with a two-star general at the Jakarta headquarters of Kostrad. Misdianto sought compensation for his broken camera, military discipline against his attackers, and a guarantee from the Kostrad central command that the military would respect media freedom. He also demanded that the military cease harassing his wife and family.

He stayed only two days in Jakarta. Back in Madiun, Misdianto went to the Military Police office and withdrew his criminal complaint. The Military Police returned his broken camera, but provided none of the promised compensation for its repair. Almost immediately, the mysterious men with crewcuts disappeared from around his house. Misdianto said his assault taught him that “press freedom in Indonesia is only an empty message.”

Redress and Accountability Mechanisms

Indonesian authorities have obligations under international human rights law to provide redress and accountability when the rights of journalists and media organizations are violated.

International human rights law, notably article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, upholds the rights to freedom of expression and the media. It also places limits on those freedoms: legal restrictions may be imposed to protect the rights and reputations of others, namely through civil defamation laws, so long as the penalties are proportionate to the harm caused. However, editors and publishers should be held responsible for what they publish by their readers and listeners, communities, and independent journalist associations – not by the government.

Indonesian law also requires journalists who are targets of physical assault to report such incidents to the National Police Profession and Security Division if the perpetrator is a police officer, or to the Military Police if the perpetrator is a soldier. The government human rights commission, Komnas-HAM, has found that police investigations of incidents of violence against journalists often stall “because of technicalities or as a result of social or political pressure.”

The Alliance of Independent Journalists and the LBH Pers, a nongovernmental legal aid organization that specializes in media freedom issues, attribute the increase of attacks on journalists to the cumulative impact of Indonesia’s chronic problems of security force impunity as well as the reluctance of media companies to support journalists who are targets of such abuse. LBH Pers said that many journalists who are victims of violence tend to accept police or military offers of informal financial compensation so they can repair or replace damaged or destroyed cameras and mobile phones. The Makassar-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Freedom of Expression partly attributes the impunity for attacks on journalists to their lack of knowledge of both their rights and legal processes for accountability. 


Human Rights Watch Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia

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Since Indonesia’s previous Universal Periodic Review in 2012, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office in October 2014 with a reformist agenda that implicitly recognizes universal human rights and freedoms by reaffirming Indonesia’s diversity and pluralism.[1]

However, President Jokowi has failed to translate his rhetorical support for human rights into meaningful policy initiatives. Religious minorities remain vulnerable to restrictions on their religious freedom due to discriminatory regulations.  Women, LGBT people, and people with disabilities face  various forms of government-promoted discrimination in their daily lives.  And in Papua abuses by the security forces are committed with impunity, while dozens of Papuan and Moluccan political prisoners remain behind bars for exercising their free expression rights.[2] Jokowi’s appointment of former general Wiranto, who was indicted for crimes against humanity by a UN-sponsored tribunal, as security minister has heightened concerns about the government’s commitment to human rights and accountability.[3] And the end of a four-year unofficial moratorium on the death penalty has brought a spate of executions of convicted drug traffickers.

1.Accountability for Past Gross Human Rights Abuses

On May 22, 2015, Indonesia’s Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo announced that the government would form a “Reconciliation Commission” to seek a “permanent solution for all unresolved human rights abuses” of the past half century.[4] Prasetyo said the commission would focus on abuses including the state-sanctioned mass killings of 1965-1966 that killed up to one million people.[5] 

Despite accepting all recommendations to investigate past human rights abuses during its 2012 UPR, including to Ensure prompt, comprehensive, and effective investigations into credible allegations of human rights violations by members of the security forces, and examine options for establishing an independent review mechanism with the ability to recommend prosecutions, the government has provided no further details of when the “Reconciliation Commission” might begin operations or how the process of accountability will proceed.[6] Meanwhile, paramilitary and nationalist groups that oppose accountability have criticized calls for redress for past rights abuses as an attempt “to revive communism.”[7]

On addressing accountability for past gross human rights abuses, Indonesia should:

-Publicly reaffirm its intent to seek accountability for past gross human rights abuses and disclose a timetable for how the accountability process will proceed;

-Ensure that the structure, procedures and practices of an accountability mechanism for past gross rights abuses are consistent with human rights standards;

-Ensure that those responsible for the injustices of the past are fully and fairly held accountable for their actions, including through criminal prosecution if and when applicable.

2. Religious Freedom

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted several recommendations on ending violations of the right of freedom of religion (recommendations 108.68, 108.98, 108.99, 108.101, 108.102, 108.103, 108.104, 108.105, 108.106, 108.107, 108.108, 108.109, 108.110, 108.111, 108.112, 108.113, 108.139).[8] However, the rights of religious minorities remain under threat from both discriminatory regulations as well as militant Islamists. 

Discrimination against religious minorities is deeply entrenched in the state bureaucracy.[9] That is fueled by discriminatory laws and regulations, including a blasphemy law that officially recognizes only six religions, and house of worship decrees that give local majority populations significant leverage over religious minority communities.[10]

State institutions have also directly violated the rights and freedoms of minorities. The Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society under the Attorney General’s Office, and the Indonesian Ulama Council, have eroded religious freedom by issuing decrees and fatwas against members of religious minorities, and pressing for the prosecution of “blasphemers.”[11]

The government response has been weak at best and complicit at worst. Officials and security forces frequently facilitate harassment of religious minorities, in some cases even blaming the victims for the attacks. Authorities have made blatantly discriminatory statements, refused to issue building permits for houses of worship, and pressured minority congregations to relocate.[12]

Indonesian officials and security forces have been complicit in the violent forced eviction of more than 7,000 members of the Gafatar religious community from their homes on Kalimantan island since January 2016.[13] In January 2016, local Indonesian authorities banned the activities of the Ahmadiyah religious community in the town of Subang in West Java province.[14]  Neither Jokowi nor other national officials have spoken out or intervened to lift the ban. That same month, local government officials on Bangka Island, located off the east coast of Sumatra, told the island’s Ahmadiyah community to convert to Sunni Islam or face forcible expulsion from the area.[15]

On addressing violence and discrimination against religious minorities, Indonesia should:

  • Implement a “zero-tolerance” policy for attacks on religious minorities. Attacks on religious minority communities should be promptly investigated and appropriately prosecuted;
  • Take active measures against local officials who fail to respect court judgments guaranteeing religious freedom, including construction of houses of worship;
  • Review existing laws, regulations, and decrees on religion to identify provisions at odds with freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, followed by a timetable for revision or repeal of offending provisions.

3.Children’s Rights

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted several recommendations to protect children’s rights (recommendations 108.62, 108.63, 108.73, 108.74).[16]

Thousands of children in Indonesia, some just 8-years-old, are working in hazardous conditions on tobacco farms.[17] Child tobacco workers are exposed to nicotine, handle toxic chemicals, use sharp tools, lift heavy loads, and work in extreme heat. The work could have lasting consequences for their health and development.[18]

Indonesia detains and neglects migrant and asylum-seeking children.[19] Each year, hundreds are detained in sordid conditions, without access to lawyers, and sometimes beaten. Others are left to fend for themselves, without any assistance with food or shelter. Indonesia detains hundreds of migrant and asylum-seeking children each year without giving them a way to challenge their detention. Indonesian law permits up to 10 years of immigration detention.[20]

On addressing abuses of the rights of children, Indonesia should:

  • Revise the list of jobs that endanger the health, safety, and morals of children set out in the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration’s Decree 235 of 2003, or enact a new law or regulation to explicitly prohibit children from working in direct contact with tobacco in any form;
  • Vigorously investigate and monitor child labor in small-scale tobacco farming, including through unannounced inspections at the times of year, times of day, and locations where children are most likely to be working;
  • Develop and implement an extensive public education and training program in tobacco farming communities to promote awareness of the health risks to children of work in tobacco farming;
  • Stop detaining unaccompanied children and detain children with families only as a last resort;
  • Improve detention conditions and end abuse of migrants in detention;
  • Accede to international refugee treaties and provide access to asylum.

4. Women Rights

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted several recommendations to protect women’s rights (recommendations 108.64, 108.65, 108.66, 108.67, 108.72, 108.73)[21], including to Eliminate completely all legal and political provisions which discriminate on the basis of civil status of women and violate sexual and reproductive rights.

The Indonesian government subjects female applicants for Indonesia’s National Police[22] and all branches of the military to discriminatory and degrading “virginity tests.”[23] Virginity testing is a form of gender-based violence and is a widely discredited practice. In November 2014, the World Health Organization issued guidelines that stated, “There is no place for virginity (or ‘two-finger’) testing; it has no scientific validity.”[24] Reports that the National Police has ceased this abusive practice are yet to be officially confirmed. Senior military personnel have defended the use of “virginity tests.” [25]

Millions of Indonesian women work abroad as domestic workers and risk serious abuses including nonpayment or delayed wages, excessive work and a lack of rest, and physical or sexual abuse at the hands of their employers.[26] In 2015, Indonesia announced that it would move towards a total ban on sending Indonesian women abroad for domestic work even though such measures have repeatedly proved ineffectual and violate the right to freedom of movement.[27] The government is yet to ratify the ILO Convention No. 189 on Domestic Workers and introduce protections for migrant domestic workers in accordance with international standards, despite accepting a recommendation during the second cycle UPR to Enhance efforts in undertaking measures to ensure better protection for its migrant workers abroad.

Indonesia's official Commission on Violence against Women reported in August 2016 that the number of discriminatory national and local regulations targeting women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people had risen to 422 in 2016 from 389 in 2015.[28] They include local laws compelling women and girls to don the hijab, or headscarf, in schools, government offices and public spaces. While many of these laws specify traditional Sunni Muslim garb both for women and men, research by Human Rights Watch indicates they disproportionately target women.[29]

On addressing violations of women’s rights, Indonesia should:

  • Require the Indonesian military and police to immediately stop inflicting abusive “virginity tests” on female applicants and discipline officials who expresses support for such tests;
  • Ratify the ILO Convention No. 189 on Domestic Work and strengthen recruitment and grievance redress procedures to make women’s migration abroad safer; 
  • Repeal discriminatory local regulations that violate women’s rights.

5.Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual (LGBT) People’s Rights

The Indonesian government stoked an unprecedented attack on the security and rights of sexual and gender minorities in early 2016.[30] Anti-LGBT statements by government officials provided social sanction for harassment and violence against LGBT Indonesians, and even death threats by militant Islamists.[31] State institutions, including the National Broadcasting Commission and the National Child Protection Commission, issued censorship directives banning information and broadcasts that portrayed the lives of LGBT people as “normal” as well as so-called “propaganda” about LGBT lives. That combination of discriminatory rhetoric and policy decisions harmed the physical security and right to free expression of LGBT people across the country.[32]

On September 27, 2014, the Aceh provincial parliament approved the Principles of the Islamic Bylaw and the Islamic criminal code (Qanun Jinayah), which create new discriminatory offenses that do not exist in the Indonesian national criminal code (Hukum Pidana).[33] The bylaws extend Sharia, or Islamic law, to non-Muslims, which criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual acts as well as all zina (sexual relations outside of marriage). The criminal code permits as punishment up to 100 lashes and up to 100 months in prison for consensual same-sex sexual acts, while zina violations carry a penalty of 100 lashes.[34] When these laws came into force in September 2015, Sharia police arrested two “suspected lesbians” – women aged 18 and 19 – for hugging in public. Police detained the women for four days, and released them into a government-run religious “rehabilitation” center for one week.[35]

In June 2016, Indonesia’s Minister of Home Affairs Tjahjo Kumolo backtracked on a pronounced commitment to abolish abusive Sharia regulations.[36] Kumolo said that the government intentionally chose to ignore discriminatory Sharia regulations while cancelling 3,143 other “problematic regional regulations” for violating the country’s credo of “unity in diversity.”[37] This comes after Indonesia noted the only recommendation it received during its second cycle UPR to eliminate legislation which criminalizes sexual relations among persons of the same sex.

On addressing violations of the rights of LGBT people, Indonesia should:

  • Publicly condemn all major incidents of anti-LGBT violence that occur in Indonesia, including attacks on individuals, organizations, or gatherings;
  • Publicly acknowledge the scope and gravity of the problem of violence and harassment against LGBT people in Indonesia, and commit to taking steps to end these abuses;
  • Instruct government officials not to make public statements that target lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people in a discriminatory or otherwise abusive manner;
  • Repeal all local regulations, including Sharia rules in Aceh, that violate the rights of LGBT people.

6.Accountability for Abuses by Military and Police Forces, especially in Papua

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted several recommendations to address human rights abuses by the military and police forces, especially in Papua (recommendations 108.84, 108.85, 108.86, 108.87, 108.90, 108.91, 108.95,108.114, 108.115 ).[38]

Indonesia’s military justice system continues to lack the transparency, independence, and impartiality required to properly investigate and prosecute serious human rights violations.

Under Indonesian law, military personnel cannot be tried in civilian courts, with only a few rarely invoked exceptions.[39] The 1997 Law on Military Courts provides that such courts have jurisdiction to prosecute all crimes committed by soldiers. Additionally, the 1997 Law on Military Courts states that military courts can only apply one of two laws:  the Military Penal Code and the general Criminal Code. This means that while civilians are subject to a criminal liability under a host of criminal laws outside the Criminal Code, soldiers are not.[40] While the 2000 Law on Human Rights Courts authorizes human rights courts to assert jurisdiction over cases involving allegations that military personnel committed serious human rights violations, at present the law applies only to allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity, and not to the broad spectrum of conduct that constitutes human rights violations.[41]A prime example of the impunity for serious crimes is Jokowi’s appointment in July 2016 of former general Wiranto as the country’s security chief – despite his indictment by a United Nations-backed tribunal for alleged crimes against humanity during East Timor’s drive for independence.[42]

In the past five years, Human Rights Watch has documented dozens of cases in which Indonesian security forces have used unnecessary or excessive force when dealing with Papuans exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and association.[43] Authorities frequently arrest and prosecute Papuan protesters peacefully advocating independence or other political change.[44]

In April 2016, the government announced that it would seek accountability for 11 high-priority past human rights cases in Papua.[45] However the government has not provided any details of an accountability mechanism for past abuses in Papua.

On addressing accountability for abuses by military and police forces, especially in Papua, Indonesia should:

-Ensure that Indonesian military personnel implicated in serious human rights violations–including those involving command responsibility–are credibly and impartially investigated and disciplined or prosecuted as appropriate;

-Revive a bill proposed in parliament that would provide civilian criminal court jurisdiction over military personnel responsible for offenses against civilians;

-Fully implement President Jokowi’s directive lifting restrictions on access to all regions of Papua by foreign journalists and appropriately discipline any government or military personnel who obstruct that access;

-Publicly reaffirm its intent to seek accountability for past gross human rights abuses in Papua and disclose a timetable for how the accountability process will proceed.

7.Disability Rights

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted several recommendations to address abuses of the rights of people with disabilities (recommendations 108.134, 108.135, 108.136).[46]

Despite a 1977 government ban on the practice, more than 18,000 people with psychosocial disabilities (mental health conditions) in Indonesia are currently living in pasung– shackled or locked up in confined space – for weeks, months or even years at a time.[47] Due to prevalent stigma and the absence of adequate community-based support services or mental health care, people with psychosocial disabilities often end up locked up in overcrowded and unsanitary institutions, without their consent, where they face abuses ranging from physical and sexual violence, and involuntary treatment including electroshock therapy, to seclusion, restraint and forced contraception.[48].

On addressing the rights of people with disabilities, Indonesia should:

  • Ensure regular and independent monitoring of mental hospitals, social care institutions, and faith healing centers and implement the ban on pasung;
  • Ban all forms of treatment, including electroconvulsive therapy, without the person’s free and informed consent. Prohibit the use of seclusion, prolonged restraint and all restraints as a form of punishment, control, retaliation or as a measure of convenience for staff;
  • Develop and implement a de-institutionalization policy and a time-bound action plan for de-institutionalization with a progressive shift to providing community-based support and mental health services, based on the values of equality, independence, and inclusion for persons with disabilities.

8.Death Penalty

Indonesia ended a four-year unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in March 2013.[49] President Jokowi has sought to justify the use of the death penalty on the basis that drug traffickers on death row had “destroyed the future of the nation.”[50] Since 2014, the government has executed 18 convicted drug traffickers and indicated that executions will continue.[51] During the 2012 UPR, Indonesia noted all four recommendations it received regarding the establishment of a moratorium on the death penalty.

On addressing the death penalty, Indonesia should:

-Immediately reinstate a moratorium on the use of the death penalty;

-Move toward abolition of the death penalty.

9.Freedom of Expression

In its last UPR review in 2012, the Indonesian government accepted recommendation 108.116 to address restrictions on freedom of expression.[52]

Authorities frequently arrest and prosecute Papuan protesters peacefully advocating independence or other political change.[53] A total of 37 Papuan activists[54]  and 28 Moluccan activists are in prison on charges of treason for “crimes” including public display of pro-independence symbols such as flags.[55] Indonesian authorities often prosecute such activists for makar, that is, rebellion or treason for non-violent expressions of support for independence from Indonesia.  Indonesian authorities also continue to restrict access by foreign journalists and rights monitors to Papua.[56] This raises serious concerns about the government’s commitment to media freedom.

In May 2015, Jokowi signaled a possible easing in the government’s chokehold on freedom of expression in Papua by granting clemency to five Papuan political prisoners .[57] In November 2015, Indonesian authorities subsequently released the Papuan activist Filep Karma, whom the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared a political prisoner in November 2011.[58] However, the government has failed to indicate when it will release the remaining Papuan and Moluccan political prisoners.

On addressing abuses of freedom of expression, Indonesia should:

-Amend or repeal laws that criminalize peaceful political expression, including articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code on treason;

-Release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally;

-Revoke article 6 of Government Regulation No. 77/2007, which prohibits the display of separatist logos or flags, or bring it into compliance with international human rights standards and the Indonesian constitution.

 

[1] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesia’s President Jokowi Silent on Human Rights,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, August 16, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/16/indonesias-president-jokowi-silent-h....

[3]“Indonesia” Indicted General Unfit for Cabinet Post,” Human Rights Watch news release, July 28, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/28/indonesia-indicted-general-unfit-cab....

[4] Param Preet-Singh, “Reconciliation Should Not Sideline Justice,” commentary,  Human Rights Watch oped, Jakarta Post, August 14, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/08/14/reconciliation-should-not-sideline-j...

[5] Ibid.

[6] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesia’s President Jokowi Silent on Humman Rights,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, August 16, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/16/indonesias-president-jokowi-silent-h....

[7] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesia’s Step Toward Accountability for 1965 Massacres,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, April 20, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/20/dispatches-indonesias-step-toward-ac....

[8]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[9]“Indonesia: Religious Minorities Targets of Rising Violence,” Human Rights Watch news release, February 28, 2013, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/28/indonesia-religious-minorities-targe....

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13]“Indonesia: Persecution of Gafatar Religious Group,” Human Rights Watch news release, March 29, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/29/indonesia-persecution-gafatar-religi....

[14]“Indonesia: Ahmadiyah Community Persecuted,” Human Rights Watch news release, February 11, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/02/11/indonesia-ahmadiyah-community-persec....

[15] Phelim Kine, “Indonesia’s Island of Intolerance,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, January 26, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/26/dispatches-indonesias-island-intoler....

[16]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[17]“Indonesia: Child Tobacco Workers Suffer as Firms Profit,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 25, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/25/indonesia-child-tobacco-workers-suff....

[18] Ibid.

[19]“Indonesia: Children Seeking Refuge Find Relief,” Human Rights Watch news release, June 24, 2016,  https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/24/indonesia-children-seeking-refuge-fi....

[20] Ibid.

[21]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[22]“Indonesia: ‘Virginity Tests’ for Female Police,” Human Rights Watch news release, November 17, 2014, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/17/indonesia-virginity-tests-female-police.

[23]“Indonesia: Military Imposing ‘Virginity Tests,’” Human Rights Watch news release, May 13, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/13/indonesia-military-imposing-virginit....

[24]  “Indonesia: Military Imposing ‘Virginity Tests,’” Human Rights Watch news release, May 13, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/13/indonesia-military-imposing-virginit...

[25] Phelim Kine, “End International Complacency with Indonesia’s Virginity Tests,” Human Rights Watch oped, Jakarta Globe, May 19, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/19/end-international-complacency-indone....

[26] For the nature of abuses that migrant domestic workers risk in Middle Eastern countries, see for example, Human Rights Watch “I Was Sold: Abuse and Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Oman,”  https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/13/i-was-sold/abuse-and-exploitation-migrant-domestic-workers-oman#39f2cb (35,109 Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Oman); “I Already Bought You: Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates,” October 2014, https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/10/22/i-already-bought-you/abuse-and-exploitation-female-migrant-domestic-workers-united.

[27] Nisha Varia, “Indonesia: Banning Migrant Domestic Work is Short-Sighted,” Human Rights Watch News release ,February 17, 2015,, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/17/indonesia-banning-migrant-domestic-work-short-sighted.

[28]“Sexist, discriminatory policies proliferate in regions,” Jakarta Post, August 20, 2016,

 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/08/20/sexist-discriminatory-policies-proliferate-regions.html (accessed August 27, 2016).

[29] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesian Women’s Rights Under Siege,” commentary, Human Rights Watch oped, Al Jazeera, November 25, 2014, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/25/indonesian-womens-rights-under-siege.

[30]“Indonesia: LGBT Crisis Exposed Official Bias,” Human Rights Watch news release, August 10, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/10/indonesia-lgbt-crisis-exposed-offici....

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33]“Indonesia: Aceh’s New Islamic Laws Violate Rights,” Human Rights Watch news release, October 2, 2014, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/02/indonesia-acehs-new-islamic-laws-vio....

[34] Ibid.

[35] Human Rights Watch, “Indonesia: ‘Suspected Lesbians’ Detained,” October 2, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/02/indonesia-suspected-lesbians-detained

[36]“Indonesia’s Blind Eye to Abusive Sharia Bylaws,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, June 21, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/21/dispatches-indonesias-blind-eye-abus....

[37] Ibid.

[38]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[39]“Indonesia: Seek Just Punishments for Military Murderers,” Human Rights Watch news release, September 9, 2013, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/09/indonesia-seek-just-punishments-mili....

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Human Rights Watch, “Something to Hide? Indonesia’s Restrictions on Media Freedom and Rights Monitoring in Papua, November 2015, https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/11/10/something-hide/indonesias-restrict....

[44]“Indonesia: Free All Political Prisoners,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 9, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/09/indonesia-free-all-political-prisoners.

[45] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesia: Match Words with Action on Papua Abuses,” commentary, Human Rights Watch oped, Jakarta Post, May 19, 2015, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/19/match-words-with-action-pa....

[46]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[47]“Indonesia: Treating Mental Health Shackles,” Human Rights Watch news release, March 20, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/20/indonesia-treating-mental-health-sha....

[48] Ibid.

[49]“Indonesia: Stop Imminent Executions,” Human Rights Watch news release, July 27, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/27/indonesia-stop-imminent-executions.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Phelim Kine, “Indonesia’s Drug Trafficker Executions Aren’t Over Yet,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch,  April 18, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/18/indonesias-drug-trafficker-execution....

[52]“Indonesia: Recommendations and Pledges,” UPR Info, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/150/17/PDF/G1215017.pd... (accessed Aug. 27, 2016).

[53]“Indonesia: Free All Political Prisoners,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 9, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/09/indonesia-free-all-political-prisoners.

[54] Papuans Behind Bars, “Current Prisoners,” http://www.papuansbehindbars.org/?page_id=17 (accessed September 2, 2016).

[55] Andreas Harsono, “Indonesia’s Forgotten Political Prisoners,” commentary, Human Rights Watch oped, Jakarta Globe, March 16, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/16/indonesias-forgotten-political-priso....

[56] Phelim Kine, “Indonesia’s Opening of Papua Still Needs to Bridge the Gap Between Reality and Rhetoric,” commentary, Human Rights Watch oped, The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/indonesias-opening-of-papua-still-needs-to-bridge-the-gap-between-reality-and-rhetoric-50399 (Accessed August 27, 2015).

[57]“Indonesia: Free All Political Prisoners,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 9, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/09/indonesia-free-all-political-prisoners.

[58] Phelim Kine,” Indonesia Frees Papuan Political Prisoner,” commentary, Human Rights Watch Dispatch, November 23, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/11/23/dispatches-indonesia-frees-papuan-po....

Indonesia: ‘Gay Porn’ Arrests Threaten Privacy

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A picture of an anti-LGBT demonstration.

Indonesian government officials made a series of anti-LGBT comments, resulting in proposals of laws which pose a serious threat to the rights and safety of LGBT Indonesians.

(New York, May 5, 2017) – An Indonesian police raid targeting gay men in Surabaya, Indonesia, on April 30, 2017, threatens the rights of the country’s already beleaguered lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, Human Rights Watch said today. The police ordered 14 men to undergo HIV tests and arrested eight of those men on charges of violating the country’s draconian and discriminatory anti-pornography law.

The police, acting on tip-offs from neighbors, carried out a midnight raid on the 14 men, who had gathered in two rooms of a hotel in central Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, according to local activists and media reports. Police detained the group while confiscating condoms, mobile phones, and a flash drive that allegedly contained pornographic videos, among other items.

On May 1, police informed the media that all 14 men underwent tests for sexually transmitted infection, including a rapid test for HIV, and that five had tested HIV positive. The police indicated that eight of the men were detained on Law on Pornography charges, and that two of them would be charged with organizing the event and providing pornography – offenses carrying prison terms of up to 15 years.

“Indonesian police are again violating the basic rights of LGBT people by invading their privacy,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Surabaya raid subjected these gay men to traumatic humiliation, puts two at risk of long prison terms, and threatens the privacy rights of all Indonesians.”

Mandatory HIV testing is contrary to the ethical and human rights principles of privacy, autonomy, and informed consent. Under the World Health Organization’s 2015 Guidelines on HIV Testing and Counseling, “Mandatory, compulsory or coercive HIV testing is never appropriate.”

The two men who allegedly organized the party face charges of violating the Law on Pornography, which prohibits sex parties and the use of pornography, and the Electronics Information and Transaction Law, which prohibits making accessible electronic content that contains “indecent” material. Indonesia’s Law on Pornography defines “deviant sexual acts” to include: sex with corpses, sex with animals, oral sex, anal sex, lesbian sex, and male homosexual sex.

The arrests in Surabaya follow an unprecedented anti-LGBT campaign in 2016 that featured a series of biased and false statements about LGBT people from government officials and politicians. The anti-LGBT onslaught led to harassment and violence against LGBT Indonesians and death threats by militant Islamists. Government institutions, including the National Broadcasting Commission and the National Child Protection Commission, issued censorship directives banning information and broadcasts that portrayed the lives of LGBT people as “normal,” as well as so-called “propaganda” about LGBT lives.

Despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s rhetorical support for the basic human rights of Indonesia’s LGBT community, the authorities target the vulnerable minority with impunity, Human Rights Watch said. In April, authorities in Aceh province arrested two men for allegedly having consensual sex in the privacy of their home. The men face a public flogging sentence – which violates international legal prohibitions against torture – under the province’s Sharia (Islamic law) ordinances.

Privacy rights are a fundamental protection that underlie everyone’s physical autonomy and identity, Human Rights Watch said. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the independent body of experts that interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Indonesia is party, has stated: “it is undisputed that adult consensual sexual activity in private is covered by the concept of ‘privacy.’”

In 2013 Indonesia co-sponsored a UN Human Rights Council resolution on the right to privacy. In the report on that resolution, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reminded governments that privacy rights (enshrined in ICCPR article 17) should be upheld jointly with the right to nondiscrimination (ICCPR article 26).

“So long as the government permits police raids on private gatherings under a discriminatory law, it will fail to curb anti-LGBT harassment and intimidation.” Kine said. “President Jokowi should make good on his commitments to protect privacy rights and put an end to state-sanctioned discrimination.”
 

Indonesia Still Restricting Foreign Media From Papua

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drawing cover

Cartoonist's depiction of Indonesian government restrictions on media freedom and rights monitoring in Papua.

Copyright 2015 Toni Malakian for Human Rights Watch

An Indonesian foreign ministry official has confirmed the government has maintained a secretive interagency “clearing house” that has long obstructed foreign journalists from traveling to the provinces of Papua and West Papua, despite promises to shut it down. That revelation comes just days after Indonesia hosted UNESCO-sponsored events marking World Press Freedom Day in Jakarta, on May 3.

Ade Safira, the director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Civil and Political Rights Protection division, said that the clearing house continued to vet requests of foreign journalists and researchers who want to travel to the two provinces, referred to as “Papua.” Safira said the body makes its decisions in consultation with the Papuan provincial government.

Safira’s comments contradict assurances of Siti Sofia Sudarma, director of information and media in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who told Human Rights Watch in August 2015 that the government had “liquidated” the clearing house, while still requiring a police permit for foreign media to visit Papua. Sudarma had said the move was in line with a May 2015 oral directive from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to lift official restrictions on foreign media access to Papua. Jokowi has failed to signal the policy change in writing via presidential instruction, creating a policy ambiguity that has enabled government and security force officials to continue to restrict foreign media from Papua.

The Indonesian government claims that since May 2015, it has allowed 39 foreign reporters to visit Papua. Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), a nongovernmental union, challenges that statistic and says only 15 foreign journalists have been granted official permission to travel to the region in that period. Human Rights Watch has documented that the Indonesian government continues to restrict foreign media access to Papua and to deport those lawfully in the country who travel to Papua without official permission. They include the French journalists Jean Frank Pierre and Basille Marie Longchamp who Indonesian police deported in March for lacking “necessary documents from related institutions” while filming a documentary sponsored by Garuda Airlines. Some foreign journalists who have traveled to Papua with official permission since May 2015 have subsequently complained of visa blacklisting for reporting that displeased the Indonesian government and the harassment and intimidation of Papuan sources.

Until Jokowi issues an unambiguous written directive lifting foreign media access restrictions to Papua, such abuses will likely continue.

Indonesia Sends Jakarta Governor to Prison for Blasphemy

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Jakarta's first non-Muslim governor and Chinese-ethnic minority, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama also known as Ahok, arrives in court for his verdict in Jakarta, Indonesia May 9, 2017.

Jakarta's first non-Muslim governor and Chinese-ethnic minority, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama also known as Ahok, arrives in court for his verdict in Jakarta, Indonesia May 9, 2017.

© 2017 Reuters

Indonesian authorities have invoked the country’s discriminatory blasphemy law to destroy the political career of former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and will now send him to prison. On Tuesday, a Jakarta court sentenced Ahok to a two-year prison sentence for blasphemy, making him exhibit A of the law’s dangers and the urgent need for its repeal.

Ahok, a Christian, was charged on November 16, 2016, for violating the blasphemy law in connection with a reference he made to a Quranic verse in September. Militant Islamist groups were successful in making Ahok’s blasphemy prosecution a centerpiece of efforts to defeat him in last month’s gubernatorial election, which Ahok lost. The law, article 156a of the Indonesian criminal code, punishes deviations from the central tenets of the six officially recognized religions with up to five years in prison. The blasphemy law has been used to prosecute and imprison members of religious minorities and traditional religions. Recent targets of the blasphemy law include three former leaders of the Gafatar religious community following the violent forced eviction of more than 7,000 members of the group from their homes on Kalimantan island last year. The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation has called for the repeal of the blasphemy law because of the threat it poses to the country’s religious minorities.

The blasphemy law also has been used as the legal basis for a number of government regulations that facilitate official discrimination on the basis of religion. These include a June 2008 government decree that ordered members of the Ahmadiyah religious community to cease all public religious activities on the grounds they deviated from the principal teachings of Islam and threatened violators with up to five years in prison.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo responded to Ahok’s conviction by urging the public to “to respect the existing legal process, as well as the verdict.” He should instead deliver on his pledges to promote religious pluralism in Indonesia and abolish the blasphemy law and other discriminatory regulations that threaten the country’s religious minorities.

Indonesia’s Courts Have Opened the Door to Fear and Religious Extremism

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Governor Basuki “Ahok” Purnama after the sentencing in his blasphemy trial in Jakarta on May 9, 2017.

Governor Basuki “Ahok” Purnama after the sentencing in his blasphemy trial in Jakarta on May 9, 2017.

© 2017 Reuters

The Jakarta court that sentenced governor Basuki “Ahok” Purnama to two years’ imprisonment for blasphemy against Islam has sent a chilling message to non-Muslims in Indonesia. How could religious freedom slowly decline in Indonesia? And how could political Islam shape the country?

Ahok, himself a Christian, is the biggest political figure to be victimised under the blasphemy law. He is not only the Jakarta governor, backed by Indonesia’s biggest political party, but he’s also an ally of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Ahok and Jokowi were the dream team: Jokowi with vision, Ahok doing daily management.

Ahok’s imprisonment is a big blow for the president. He too might expect to be called infidel, kafir – a term used by Islamists to describe their fellow Muslim opponents.

Indonesia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy has created space for more freedom of expression for all Indonesians, including Islamists. Emboldened by the government’s inaction on discrimination and violence against religious minorities, over the last 19 years Islamists have increasingly sought to enforce laws like the blasphemy law more strictly to “protect” Islam and move Indonesia from a secular to an Islamic state.

Indonesia’s 1945 constitution guarantees freedom of religion. But in January 1965, then-President Sukarno issued a presidential decree that prohibited individuals from being hostile toward other religions. Sukarno decreed that Indonesia was to protect six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Sukarno never used that law. He lost power in October 1965.

General Suharto, who ruled Indonesia from 1965 to 1998, used the blasphemy law only a handful of times. Three of his successors – B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri – never used it.

The verdict paints a frightening future for moderate Muslims and non-Muslims who believe in Indonesia’s pluralist society.

The law only became an issue when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono succeeded Megawati in 2004. Yudhoyono strengthened the blasphemy law offices, which were under the Attorney General’s Office, by creating branches in every province and regency. He also took no action against emerging Islamist militant groups that engage in threats and violence against religious minorities. During his decade in power, Yudhoyono’s administration sent at least 106 blasphemy cases to courts – and all were found guilty.

In March 2006, Yudhoyono decreed a “religious harmony” regulation and set up government advisory bodies, skillfully named the Religious Harmony Forum, in every province and regency. The forum’s credo says, “The majority should protect the minorities and the minorities should respect the majority.” But it basically denies equal rights to Indonesian citizens. In many Muslim-majority areas, the credo allows Muslims to have effective veto power over the activities of religious minorities. More than 1,000 churches were closed down in that decade.

In 2014, Jokowi succeeded Yudhoyono. Many opinion makers and moderate Muslim leaders advised Jokowi to undo the discriminatory infrastructure he had inherited from Yudhoyono.

Unfortunately, Jokowi declined to take those steps. He instead sought to foster better ties with moderate Muslim groups such as the nationwide Nahdlatul Ulama in the hope that it would strengthen his hand with the hardline Islamist groups. He clearly miscalculated.

The Ahok verdict endorsed an Islamist narrative of blasphemy. One of the five judges, reciting the Qur’an’s Al-Maidah 51 verse in Arabic, stressed that Muslims should not elect non-Muslim leaders. The court also adopted the Islamist’s position that non-Muslims should not comment on Qur’anic interpretations.

The verdict paints a frightening future for moderate Muslims and non-Muslims who believe in Indonesia’s pluralist society. Non-Muslims will think twice before making comments in public or on social media about diversity and pluralism. Beyond elected officials, public servants and executives of state-owned companies may be next in line.

Will it be OK to talk about opening a food vendor during the Ramadan fasting month? Will it be lawful to discuss mandatory wearing of the hijab? Non-Muslims might risk prison time just by venturing into these very ordinary subjects of Indonesian life.

If someone powerful and once popular like Ahok could be jailed for blasphemy, who is next?

Sparing the Rod in Indonesia

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‘Sparing the Rod: Gay men sentenced to public flogging a test of Indonesia’s core values’ PHOTO

People drive a motorcycle past a banner put up by the hardline Islamic Defenders Front calling for gay people to leave Bandung, Indonesia West Java province, January 27, 2016.  The banner reads, "Lesbian and Gay banned in our area."

© 2016 Reuters

His neighbors had been watching him for weeks.

Twenty-year-old Muhammad (a pseudonym) rented a room in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province. On March 28, 23-year-old Hanif (also a pseudonym) arrived at his flat. They didn’t know they were being watched. Three hours later, the neighbors barged into the flat, filming the naked men with their camera phones. These vigilantes called the young men “dogs,” and phoned the local Sharia (Islamic law) police. The authorities arrived, arrested, and detained the pair—young men who, if the prosecutor gets his way, will be the first Indonesians ever to receive public flogging for homosexuality.

The prosecutor this week recommended 80 lashes, 20 shy of the maximum the law permits because the men were young and admitted their guilt. This is not a compassionate sentence—but a grotesque reflection of how the enforcement of Aceh’s laws ruin lives.

Everything—from the snooping, to the Sharia squad tip-off, to the flogging sentence—is in accordance with the law in Aceh.  Aceh is a devoutly Islamic province in the world’s largest Muslim country, that likes to proclaim itself moderate. It is led by a president who touts diversity and pluralism, but who has failed to back that rhetoric with protection for the rights of beleaguered minorities.

Aceh’s position within the republic is unique. A 30-year separatist conflict seeded deep distrust between Acehnese and the national government. The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami led to a ceasefire that soon ended the war but wrought unprecedented devastation from which the province has not recovered. The 2005 peace agreement ensured Aceh’s “special status,” making it the only one of Indonesia’s 34 provinces that can legally adopt bylaws derived from Sharia (though such provisions, modeled on Aceh’s, are spreading nationwide).

Over the past decade, Aceh’s parliament has gradually adopted Sharia-inspired ordinances that criminalize everything from non-hijab-wearing women, to drinking alcohol, to gambling, to extramarital sexual relations. The province’s 2014 Criminal Code bars both male and female same-sex behavior. Under its Sharia ordinances, Aceh imposed cane lashing against 339 people in 2016; a punishment recognized under international law as torture.

To make matters worse, local government officials have aggressively stoked homophobia. In 2012, then-Banda Aceh deputy mayor Illiza Saaduddin advocated harsh punishments for homosexuality, telling the media: “If we ignore it, it will be like an iceberg…Even if one case of homosexuality [is] found, it’s already a problem.” The following year, after Illiza was elected mayor, she told reporters that “homosexuals are encroaching on our city.” In February 2016, she announced she would create a “special team” to make the public more aware of the “threat of LGBT” and to “train” LGBT people to “return to a normal life” while posting an image of herself to Instagram holding a handgun and vowing to flush gays out of Aceh.

In October 2015, Sharia police arrested two women, ages 18 and 19, on suspicion of being lesbians for embracing in public, and detained them for three nights at a Sharia police facility in Banda Aceh before sending them to a week of religious rehab. Officers repeatedly attempted to compel the two women to identify other suspected LGBT people in Aceh by showing them photographs of individuals taken from social media accounts.

Despite Aceh’s odious anti-LGBT ordinances, Indonesia has historically been a unique beacon of tolerance for LGBT peoplein Southeast Asia. The country has never—including when it was a Dutch colony until 1945—criminalized adult consensual same-sex behavior. LGBT organizations first opened their doors in the 1980s and operated in a relatively placid environment for decades.

But that tolerance has proven fragile in the face of government-fueled animus. Anti-LGBT incidents across Indonesia have significantly increased since January 2016—in synch with broader rising intolerance of religious minorities. Last year’s LGBT crisis started with vitriolic anti-LGBT rhetoric from officials and politicians and included police raids on suspected gatherings of gay men, and attacks on LGBT activists.

In October, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo broke his long silence on escalating anti-LGBT rhetoric by saying that “the police must act” against actions by bigoted groups or individuals to harm LGBT people or deny them their rights, and that “there should be no discrimination against anyone.”

In the case of Muhammad and Hanif in Aceh, Jokowi a faces a test of Indonesia’s core national values—what he has often proudly touted as“Islam and democracy going hand in hand.” These young men are two Indonesians who wanted nothing more than to live their lives and have their privacy respected.  Now they await a public flogging. A pluralist president like Jokowi should recognize the right thing to do here is to spare these two the rod.

Indonesia: Stop Public Flogging of Gay Men

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Two Indonesian men walk into a cell prior to their trials at a shariah court in Banda Aceh on May 17, 2017.

Two Indonesian men walk into a cell prior to their trials at a shariah court in Banda Aceh on May 17, 2017. 

© 2017 Getty Images

(New York, May 20, 2017) – Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo should immediately intervene to prevent the scheduled May 23, 2017 public flogging of two young men convicted of same-sex sexual relations, Human Rights Watch said today. The men were prosecuted under Aceh province’s abusive Sharia regulations and sentenced to 85 lashes with a cane, which constitutes torture under international law.

On March 28, unidentified vigilantes forcibly entered an apartment in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, and took two men in their twenties to the police for allegedly having same-sex relations. A Sharia (Islamic law) court convicted them of sodomy on May 17. While Aceh’s Sharia courts have enforced public flogging before, this is the first time that Sharia courts have sentenced people to flogging for homosexual acts.

“President Jokowi has spoken out in support of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Indonesia, so the imminent public flogging of two young men for same-sex relations is a crucial moment to act,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Jokowi needs to be clear to Aceh’s authorities that flogging is torture for which they will be held to account.”

Aceh’s Sharia ordinances empower members of the public as well as the special Sharia police to publicly identify and detain anyone suspected of violating its rules. Cell phone video footage of the raid apparently shot by a vigilante shows one of the two men visibly distressed as he calls for help on his cellphone.

Under Aceh’s Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayah), the men faced up to 100 lashes in public as punishment for same-sex behavior. The prosecutor recommended 80 lashes because the men were young and reportedly admitted their guilt.

“The court’s less-than-maximum sentence of 85 lashes is no act of compassion. It does not change the reality that flogging is a grotesque display of medieval torture,” Kine said.

Local government officials in Aceh have long stoked discrimination against LGBT people, Human Rights Watch said. In 2012 then-Banda Aceh Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamaladvocated harsh punishments for homosexuality, telling the media: “Even if one case of homosexuality [is] found, it’s already a problem.” In 2013, after Djamal was elected mayor of Banda Aceh, she told reporters that “homosexuals are encroaching on our city.” In February 2016, she announced she would create a “special team” to make the public more aware of the “threat of LGBT” and to “train” LGBT people to “return to a normal life” while posting an image of herself to Instagram holding a handgun and vowing to flush LGBT people out of Aceh.

Aceh’s Sharia police have previously detained LGBT people. In October 2015, Sharia police arrested two women, ages 18 and 19, on suspicion of being lesbians for embracing in public and detained them for three nights at a Sharia police facility in Banda Aceh. Sharia police repeatedly attempted to compel the two women to identify other suspected LGBT people in Aceh by showing them photographs of individuals taken from social media accounts – sparking fears among LGBT people in Aceh that the Sharia police could target them in the future.

In April 2016, four United Nations special rapporteurs wrote to the Indonesian government expressing concerns about the abusive enforcement of Sharia against LGBT people in Aceh. In October 2016, Jokowi broke his long silence on escalating anti-LGBT rhetoric by defending the rights of the country’s LGBT community, saying that “there should be no discrimination against anyone.”

“The clock is ticking for Jokowi to demonstrate that his support of equal rights for all is not empty rhetoric. He needs to start by protecting these two young men from torture,” Kine said.
 


A First in Asia: Taiwan to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

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Supporters hug each other during a rally after Taiwan's constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, the first such ruling in Asia, in Taipei, Taiwan May 24, 2017.

Supporters hug each other during a rally after Taiwan's constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, the first such ruling in Asia, in Taipei, Taiwan May 24, 2017.

© 2017 Reuters

Taiwan’s constitutional court this week paved the way for marriage equality in the country by striking down the legal definition of marriage as “between a man and a woman.”

The landmark decision declared this limited definition of marriage unconstitutional and gave parliament two years to amend existing laws, or pass new legislation to include same-sex marriage. If parliament fails to act, same-sex couples will automatically be able to marry. Parliament has previously proposed draft legislation to adopt same sex marriage but to date these initiatives have been unsuccessful. 

Taiwan’s ruling, imposing a clear time frame, is not only a victory for supporters of marriage equality in Taiwan, but also a significant development in Asia, where no country has yet allowed same-sex marriage.

The case was brought through two petitions -- one by the City of Taipei, after it was sued for failing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The other was from Chi Chia-wei, an activist who challenged the civil code’s definition of marriage.   

Marriage equality in Colombia (2016) and South Africa (2006) followed the same path, with constitutional courts giving parliament a set time frame to enact enabling legislation. In 2007, the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered the government to appoint a committee to explore same-sex marriage legislation. However, no bill has been introduced.  Nepal was the 10th country in the world to include express protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, in its 2015 constitution.

This ruling is a milestone on the road to equality for LGBT people in Taiwan, who face social and cultural stigma and discrimination. While Taiwan has taken a significant step forward, there are strong legal and social impediments to equality in the region. For example, the Supreme Court of Singapore rejected a challenge to the colonial-era sodomy law in 2014, while the LGBT community in Indonesia has faced a barrage of homophobic rhetoric, a wave of arrests, and the recent public caning of two gay men in Aceh.  Other countries in the region should take their cue from Taiwan and join this global movement for non-discrimination and equal rights for all.  
 

 

Letter on Police Raids Against LGBT People in Indonesia

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General Tito Karnavian, National Police Chief
Jl. Trunojoyo 3, Jakarta 12110
Indonesia

Your Excellency:

We write to express concern about a pattern of police action against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Indonesia that is both discriminatory and undermines the fundamental right to privacy. This is evident in recent police raids in Surabaya and Jakarta and in a recent statement by the West Java police chief.

Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organization that investigates and reports on human rights abuses in over 90 countries. We have worked on a range of human rights issues in Indonesia for nearly three decades.

On April 30, 2017, police raided a private gathering of gay and bisexual men in Surabaya, arrested 14 men, detaining and subjecting them to HIV tests without their consent.[1] On May 21, police raided the Atlantis Spa in Jakarta, arrested 141 people, and charged 10 for holding an alleged sex party. Officers allegedly paraded the suspects naked in front of media, and interrogated them while they remained unclothed, though the police deny this. Both police raids were carried out under the pretext of the 2008 Anti-Pornography law. This law is discriminatory in content as it specifically includes “lesbian sex” and “male homosexual sex” as “deviant sexual acts,” alongside sex with corpses and sex with animals. This contravenes international human rights law applicable to Indonesia, as it expressly discriminates against gay men and lesbians. It is also contrary to the World Health Organization, which regards same-sex orientation as a normal variant of human sexuality.

The police’s use of this law as a pretext to raid private gatherings allows for the discriminatory targeting of Indonesia’s already-beleaguered LGBT population. Privacy rights are a fundamental protection that underlie everyone’s physical autonomy and identity. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the independent body of experts that interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is party, has stated: “It is undisputed that adult consensual sexual activity in private is covered by the concept of ‘privacy.’”

We are also deeply concerned that Inspector General Anton Charliyan, the West Java police chief, announced plans on May 24 to create a special unit within the police force to detect and punish LGBT people. Charliyan’s statement disturbingly echoes Banda Aceh mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin, who announced in February 2016 that she would create a “special team” to make the public more aware of the “threat of LGBT,” and to “train” LGBT people to “return to a normal life.”[2]

Your office is obligated to uphold the basic rights of all people in your jurisdiction without discrimination. We urge you to act swiftly to ensure that LGBT people are not targeted by the police and that their fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy, are upheld. This is in line with President Jokowi’s October 2016 statement that “the police must act” against any moves by bigoted groups or individuals to harm LGBT people or deny them their rights, and that “there should be no discrimination against anyone.”[3]

We request that you initiate an investigation into the procedures that led to the raids, and the behavior of the officers during the raids—including their alleged exposure of the detainees’ identities in the media. We urge you to reaffirm publicly that the National Police of Indonesia will protect everyone’s basic rights regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

We would be happy to meet with you to discuss these issues further.

Sincerely,

Brad Adams
Asia Director


[1] Human Rights Watch, “Indonesia: ‘Gay Porn’ Arrests Threaten Privacy,” May 4, 2017,  https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/05/04/indonesia-gay-porn-arrests-threaten-....

[2] Serambi Indonesia, “Pemko Bentuk Tim Pencegahan LGBT,” February 27, 2016, http://aceh.tribunnews.com/2016/02/27/pemko-bentuk-tim-pencegahan-lgbt (accessed June 1, 2016).

[3] Human Rights Watch, “Indonesia President Jokowi Defends LGBT Rights,” October 20, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/20/indonesia-president-jokowi-defends-l....

Indonesia: Police Raids Foster Anti-Gay Hysteria

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National police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian and President Joko Widodo at Karnavian’s inauguration in Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 13, 2016.

National police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian and President Joko Widodo at Karnavian’s inauguration in Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 13, 2016.

© 2016 Reuters

(New York) – Indonesia’s national police force should immediately investigate recent raids by local law enforcement on gatherings of gay men, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to national police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian. Indonesia’s police leadership should commit to ending the targeting of sexual minorities and uphold their obligation to protect everyone’s basic rights without discrimination.

“Indonesia’s police raids against LGBT people are part of a disturbing pattern of rights abuses that strike fear into already-marginalized communities,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The national police need to stop these raids to restore public confidence that the police will do their duty to protect all Indonesians.”

On April 30, 2017, police raided a private gathering of gay and bisexual men in the city of Surabaya, arrested and detained 14 men, and subjected them to HIV tests without their consent. On May 21, police raided the Atlantis Spa in Jakarta, arrested 141 people, and charged 10 for holding an alleged sex party. Officers allegedly paraded the suspects naked in front of media and interrogated them still unclothed, a claim the police deny. And on May 24, the West Java police chief, Gen. Anton Charliyan, announced plans to create a special unit within the police force to detect and punish lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

Indonesia’s national police force oversees all regional and municipal police forces in the country and is ultimately responsible for their actions. National police chief Karnavian reports directly to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Anti-LGBT incidents across Indonesia have significantly increased since January 2016 and included police raids– sometimes in collusion with militant Islamists – on suspected gatherings of gay men, closure of public transgender events, attacks on LGBT activists, and vitriolic anti-LGBT rhetoric from officials and politicians. In October, Jokowi broke his long silence on escalating anti-LGBT rhetoric by defending the rights of the country’s LGBT community. He declared that “the police must act” against actions by bigoted groups or individuals to harm LGBT people or deny them their rights, and that “there should be no discrimination against anyone.”

Police carried out the recent raids in Surabaya and Jakarta under Indonesia’s 2008 anti-pornography law, which is discriminatory in content as it specifically includes “lesbian sex” and “male homosexual sex” as “deviant sexual acts,” alongside sex with corpses and sex with animals. The law contravenes international human rights law applicable to Indonesia, as it expressly discriminates against gay men and lesbians. It is also contrary to the views of the World Health Organization and mental health bodies globally, which regard same-sex orientation as a normal variant of human sexuality.

“The police’s use of a discriminatory so-called anti-pornography law as a pretext to raid private gatherings exposes the crude bigotry of their actions,” Adams said. “President Jokowi put the police on notice about protecting LGBT people. Now he needs to make sure they act on it.”

States should protect LGBTI persons from violence and discrimination; Philippines should cooperate with UN executions mandate

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We welcome the first report of the Independent Expert on SOGI-related violence and discrimination. We recognize that some States opposed creation of the mandate, but are encouraged that it was reaffirmed by the General Assembly with support from all UN regional groups. We hope that all can stand united in the recognition that no one should be subjected to discrimination or violence on any ground.

Our recent research supports the Independent Expert’s assessment that SOGI-based violence and discrimination “stretches from the home to the education system to the community setting to the State level and beyond.” Human Rights Watch has, for example, documented domestic violence against lesbian women in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; severe bullying against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming school children in Japan, the Philippines and the United States; local violence against LGBT people in Kenya and Nigeria that goes unaddressed by officials; and state-sanctioned violence against gay men by lashings of gay men in Indonesia’s Aceh province, arbitrary detention and torture in Chechnya province in Russia, and forced anal examinations in Egypt, Tanzania, and Tunisia.

States not only have an obligation to take action when these abuses are committed by state officials or agents, but also when committed by private individuals as guarantors of safety and human rights for all, with no discrimination on any grounds. States need to provide protection and redress, and ensure that their legal frameworks do not promote or justify violence and discrimination.

We also thank the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for her report, and are dismayed that the Philippines has sought to impose unreasonable conditions on her proposed country visit, thereby impeding her independence to examine and report on the more than 7,000 killings perpetrated in the context of President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs.” As a member of this Council, the Philippines has an obligation to uphold the highest standards of human rights, and to cooperate with the Council and its mechanisms, and should be held accountable for failure to do so. We call on the Philippines to allow unfettered access to the Special Rapporteur on an urgent basis, and we urge this Council to condemn all unlawful killings and establish an independent international investigation to determine responsibility and ensure mechanisms for accountability.

Indonesia’s Ahmadiyah Push Back Against Discriminatory Laws

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Indonesia’s besieged Ahmadiyah religious community is fighting back.

The Ahmadiyah mosque in Depok, West Java ordered sealed by local police to "protect" Ahmadiyah from attacks by militant Islamists, June 2017.

The Ahmadiyah mosque in Depok, West Java ordered sealed by local police to "protect" Ahmadiyah from attacks by militant Islamists, June 2017.

© 2017 Phelim Kine/Human Rights Watch

Earlier this week, representatives of the religious minority from Manislor district in West Java’s Kuningan regency filed a formal complaint against a local government requirement that they renounce their faith to obtain national identification cards, critical to accessing a range of government services. They said lack of IDs meant Ahmadiyah community members were not able to register marriages or get treatment at a local hospital. An ombudsman office representative has criticized the ID requirement as “maladministration.”

The Ahmadiyah community in Manislor are victims of routine bureaucratic discrimination. Indonesia’s 1965 blasphemy law permits only six officially protected religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. All Indonesian citizens must obtain a national ID card at age 17 and they are essential to apply for official documents including birth, marriage, and death certificates. Indonesian law requires ID cards to state the holder’s religion. That requirement bars Ahmadiyah and other officially unrecognized religious minorities from receiving national ID cards.

Indonesia’s Ahmadiyah have been under threat since 2008 when the government of then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a decree ordering the Ahmadiyah community to “stop spreading interpretations and activities that deviate from the principal teachings of Islam.” Following the decree, militant Islamists launched several violent attacks against Ahmadiyah including an attack in Cikeusik in February 2011 that killed three Ahmadiyah men.

During Yudhoyono’s decade in power, militant Islamists with the complicity of local police and government officials forced the closure of more than 30 Ahmadiyah mosques, while other religious minorities, including the Shia and some Christian groups, were also targets of harassment, intimidation, and violence.

The frequency and severity of violent attacks on religious minorities have decreased since President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office in 2014, and he has pledged to protect religious minorities and fight religious intolerance. But Kandali Lubis, an Ahmadiyah spokesman, told Human Rights Watch that at least seven Ahmadiyah mosques remained closed in Indonesia under the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree. They include an Ahmadiyah mosque in Depok, West Java that the local government sealed on the basis of “protecting” the Ahmadis from attack by militant Islamists.

Until Jokowi abolishes regulations that discriminate against the country’s religious minorities, the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia can expect more demands from aggrieved communities such as the Ahmadiyah of Manislor village that the government respect, rather than deny their rights.

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