Activists demand Dita's release

JAKARTA (JP): Some 30 women workers and activists of the Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI) staged a protest at the Ministry of Justice to demand the release of fellow activist Dita Indah Sari who is serving a six-year jail sentence at the Tangerang Correctional Institution.

They protested on Tuesday against what they believed to be the government's discriminatory treatment of political prisoners and jailed labor activists.

"Many political prisoners jailed arbitrarily by former president Soeharto's regime have yet to be released. One of them is Dita Sari. We want the government to release her immediately," Farahdiba Agust, a labor activist, told The Jakarta Post.

She claimed that Dita, the secretary-general of the Center for Indonesian Workers' Strife (PPBI), had never been involved in any political activities and that she had served enough time in jail because of her fight for workers' welfare.

Dita, along with fellow activist Wilson bin Nurtivas, was arrested in May 1995 for organizing massive labor rallies in East Java's capital of Surabaya to demand that the government raise workers' minimum wages from between Rp 2,800 and Rp 4,750 to Rp 7,000 per day.

In April 1997, the Surabaya District Court sentenced her to six years imprisonment for subversion. She was also found guilty of organizing labor demonstrations that generated into riots in Jakarta in the same year.

Wilson, who was sentenced to five years in jail on the same charges, was released in July 1998. (rms)