Evicted squatters asked to leave rights body's office<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): About 250 people who moved into the complaint
\nroom of the National Commission on Human Rights office on Jl.
\nLatuharhari after they were evicted from Pancoran Mas last week
\nhave been asked to leave the office.<\/p>\n
The commission's secretary-general Baharudin Lopa suggested
\nthey rent small houses in the areas they lived in before they
\nmoved to Pancoran Mas.<\/p>\n
"This office is not a shelter. We can't afford to feed them
\nfor a long time. There is no budget for that," Lopa said.<\/p>\n
He said he suggested they rent small houses because he knew
\nthat the men were still working, mostly as drivers.<\/p>\n
"They are not really poor families."<\/p>\n
But the commission would not force them to leave the office,
\nhe said. "We have asked them politely."<\/p>\n
Lopa said the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Depok
\nmayoralty seemed unable to offer them temporary shelter.<\/p>\n
The commission has written to the mayoralty asking them to
\narrange temporary shelter for the evicted people.<\/p>\n
The men, women, children and babies began sleeping in the
\ncomplaint room last Tuesday after they were evicted from "their
\nland" in Depok on April 17.<\/p>\n
The Bogor and Depok mayoralty bulldozed 700 makeshift houses
\nthat had been built on 19-hectares of the Ministry of Health's
\nland in Pancoran Mas, Depok.<\/p>\n
The squatters asked the commission yesterday to let them stay
\nbecause they said there was no place for them to stay in the
\ncity.<\/p>\n
"It's nice here. We sleep in an air-conditioned room," one of
\nthe "refugees" said.<\/p>\n
He said he and his friends could not work because soldiers had
\ntaken their clothes in the eviction.<\/p>\n
People were sitting or lying on mats in the commission's front
\nyard yesterday.<\/p>\n
A Christian preacher, Yoriono, visited them yesterday and
\nasked the commission to let them stay until they found another
\nshelter.<\/p>\n
"They don't have money. They used their money to build their
\nshanties but the mayoralty demolished them without giving them
\nenough time to prepare," the preacher, from a Cengkareng church
\nin West Jakarta, said. (jun)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/evicted-squatters-asked-to-leave-rights-bodys-office-1447893297",
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