Banning of play about Marsinah criticized
SURABAYA (JP): The Surabaya Legal Aid Institute and Indonesian Islamic University Students' Movement (PMII) decried Thursday a police banning of a play about the life of slain labor activist Marsinah.
"It's a blatant shackling of intellectual creativity," Adnan, coordinator of PMII's social and political studies here, told The Jakarta Post. "It's outrageous."
PMII is affiliated with the 30 million-strong Moslem organization Nahdlatul Ulama.
Separately, the foundation's Andik Hardiyanto said: "The banning is a show of power abuse and disrespect for citizens' rights by security personnel."
Police banned Wednesday Marsinah Menggugat (Marsinah Accuses), a monologue play which is a tribute to the activist -- who was murdered in East Java in 1993 -- by playwright and actress Ratna Sarumpaet and her Satu Merah Panggung theater group.
The show was sponsored by the foundation to mark its 27th anniversary.
First Lt. Muchid from the Genteng police precinct prevented the performance from going ahead, saying he was doing so on orders from the East Java Police because the play was not authorized.
Hundreds of disappointed members of the audience remained in the Cak Doerasim Arts building singing patriotic songs until they were pushed out of the foyer by the police.
Ratna protested the ban, given that the play had already been performed in seven cities, albeit under tight police security.
"I wonder why Marsinah, who is dead, is still feared by security officers here," she said.
Ratna's first performance of the play was in September 1994. It is based on the then unpublished manuscript of a book called Marsinah, Nyanyian dari Bawah Tanah (Songs from the Underworld), which was to have been launched Wednesday.
Marsinah was found dead after she had organized a workers' strike at PT Catur Putra Surya, a watch manufacturer in Sidoarjo, East Java.
Her badly mutilated body was found on May 9, 1993, in an abandoned shack near Nganjuk in East Java.
Police charged nine people with the murder -- owners, managers and security officers of the company.
They were subsequently convicted in the Surabaya District Court although they all claimed they were innocent.
They claimed they had been framed because the government was getting so much flack about labor conditions and the murder from labor organizations and human rights campaigners at home and abroad.
The Supreme Court acquitted all nine in 1994, ruling that the trials were inconclusive, and that much of the evidence was extracted from the accused by force.
After their release in 1994, police insisted the nine were still their chief suspects and that DNA tests would provide sufficient evidence to support a new trial.
But police closed their investigation into the murder last September after their last lead, the DNA test, failed because the blood sample had been contaminated.
The DNA test was the last and probably only lead the police had to sustain their investigation into the murder which had stirred public outcry at home and abroad. (nur/aan)