Activists pay tribute to Princen

Activists pay tribute to Princen

JAKARTA: Human rights activists paid tribute to one of their
modern day heroes, the late Johanes Cornelis Princen, for his
lifetime's work, by naming the library of the Indonesian Legal
Aid Institution Foundation (YLBHI) after him on Friday.

The library was built in 1969 by Princen, a former Dutch
soldier who deserted and changed his nationality to Indonesian.

Many fellow activists from outside Jakarta also attended the
event held at YLBHI office and agreed to establish a "Poncke
Memorial Foundation", which will provide scholarships for human
rights defenders. Princen was affectionately known as Poncke.

His friends remembered Princen as "a lonely man, who was
dubbed a traitor, verbally attacked by his countrymen and not
accepted by the Indonesian government due to their differences in
political ideas".

Princen was jailed several times during the founding president
Sukarno's term in office and Soeharto's New Order regime.

He suffered a fatal stroke on Feb. 22. He was 76 years old.
--JP