NGO activists arrested with protesting workers

JAKARTA (JP): City police apprehended over 500 people, most of whom claimed to be workers of the publicly listed candy and biscuit producer PT Mayora Indah, along with at least four NGO activists during a protest early Wednesday morning.

Staged in front of the Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) office in Central Jakarta, the activists were forced into police trucks. They were charged for having disturbed public order and for staging a protest without prior notification to police, as required by law.

The four NGO activists detained after the 1 a.m. protest were from the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), and included its coordinator, Wardah Hafidz.

According to UPC lawyer Sri Wiyani, police have accused Wardah of agitating the protesters, an offense for which she could be charged with violating Article 160 of the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of six years imprisonment.

"She's already been questioned as a suspect," Sri said, providing no details on the other UPC activists.

After propelling the protesters into the trucks, the police quickly drove the vehicles to their headquarters on Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta.

The protesters, who have staged a series of rallies since April demanding the company hire them again, were then identified by police officers.

At noon, the police supplied them with lunch.

Most of the 532 people who admitted being Mayora workers were allowed to go home in the evening.

Dozens of others decided to stay behind, saying they had to support Wardah, who was still being questioned late into the evening.

One of the protesters, Purnomo, said many of the protesting employees were unaware of Wardah's presence at the rally.

"I myself had no idea that Mbak (sister) Wardah was there. So how could I know if she was provoking us," he said.

Gondo, coordinator of the protest, said the rally aimed to challenge Bapepam senior officials to revoke Mayora's go-public status.

"We urged Bapepam to also include terms of protection of human rights as a condition for a company to obtain and to maintain its go-public status," he said.

The UPC lawyer said at first Wardah was insistent on her right not to answer questions from the officers without the presence of her lawyer.

Sri said Wardah only began answering questions 10 hours later, after the arrival of her lawyer.

City police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said Wardah was arrested for questioning as "a witness" only.

"We'll see the result of the interrogation later, whether she'll be named as a suspect or witness in the case," Noegroho said.

According to the preliminary police version, Wardah was apprehended after ordering the workers to stay united and refuse a police order to disperse.

"When our officers tried to disperse the protesters, Wardah told the workers to stay put. It's already a form of provoking people against officers," said Maj. Soenaryo, who was in charge of the removal of the workers.

Soenaryo said the protesters had disturbed the public order, and alleged they had overstepped the line, because they were yelling and sitting in front of the government office.

He said some of them even took to the street, ignoring other people's needs.

Lawyer Sri argued: "Wardah was there only to show her concern for the workers' fate."

Another lawyer acting for Wardah, Johnson Panjaitan from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said the workers' drawn-out protest was mainly due to the reluctance of the company to impose a Minister of Manpower order. The ruling asked the firm to reemploy its 1,367 fired workers by June 15 at the latest.

He also said the ministry appeared to be "unable to take stern measures against PT Mayora".

The minister's order also urged the company to pay the workers a full salary, backdated to the beginning of May.

Panjaitan said the company had not paid the workers since the latter held protests beginning in April.

At a protest organized by workers on June 9, hundreds rallied in front of Mayora's office headquarters.

In the protest, the workers from several Mayora factories in and around Jakarta blocked off the headquarters' entrance doors, and prevented colleagues, who did not join the rally, to go about their work.(emf/asa)