Activists lose suit against police

JAKARTA (JP): Four activists from the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) lost their lawsuit against the Jakarta Police at the South Jakarta District Court last week.

At a pretrial hearing, judge Muchtar Ritonga dismissed the case on a technicality, saying that the plaintiffs had never been declared suspects by the police to begin with.

The four -- Anton Sulton, Idham Kurniawan, Mohamad Hafiz Azdam and Usep Setiawan -- had filed a lawsuit against the police saying that they were forcibly removed while staging a hunger strike at the People's Consultative Assembly complex in August.

They were demanding compensation of Rp 4 billion.

The four activists staged the hunger strike in August to draw attention to various land conflicts in Indonesia. (01)