Rights activist keeps fighting

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

Deddy Prihambudi, the chairman of the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute, who usually speaks in an explosive manner, was, for a moment, unusually quiet.

"Human rights are certainly a complicated problem in Indonesia and the government is still ambivalent about them," Jember, East Java-born Deddy, knitting his brow and closing his eyes, told The Jakarta Post in Surabaya recently.

Although he feels reluctant to be dubbed a human rights fighter, Deddy is inseparable from the history of the struggle for human rights in East Java. He has been involved in the struggle since he was a law student at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, in the 1980s.

Along with his peers and his seniors, including the late Munir, Deddy participated in a lot of discussions on problems relating to human rights and the law, which were often violated during the New Order era.

"The social upheaval in land issues involving the Nipah community in Madura is always fresh in my mind. That was a major case that I handled before I became a lawyer," he told the Post, reminiscing.

In the 1990s, tall, well-built Deddy, who had just graduated from law school, joined the Malang chapter of the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute as a volunteer, along with the late Munir.

That marked the beginning of his passion for the struggle for the enforcement of the law and the upholding of human rights; it also got him involved further in the activities of the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute.

Deddy became more prominent in the fight for human rights following the tragic death of Marsinah, a labor activist who lost her life in Sidoarjo, East Java in 2002.

Together with the late Munir, Deddy investigated the case, which has remained a symbol of labor struggle in Indonesia. "We secretly tried to find out in Sidoarjo what had actually happened to Marsinah," he said.

In those days, terror and threats were commonplace, especially when the findings of the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute increasingly implicated security officials in Marsinah's case.

"I was threatened numerous times," he said. Marsinah's case has yet to be resolved. It is something for the Indonesian people to think about. Even though the evidence is very clear, the case has yet to be dealt with properly," he said, in serious tones.

'Not much has changed'

Following the attack on the offices of the central executive board of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) in 1996, many student activists were kidnapped. The Surabaya Legal Aid Institute responded to this situation and Deddy became a member of the legal defense team set up to help the student activists.

They were unable to help them, and many were later incarcerated.

Still, Deddy gained greater popularity and was entrusted with the directorship of the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute, a position that he has held for two terms, from 2001 to 2003 and from 2003 to the present day.

For Deddy, a devout Muslim, the collapse of Soeharto's New Order did not herald much change in the country's human rights climate.

"In the Soeharto era, the government often used the military to violate human rights but today we see violations of human rights by civil society and the military acting together," he noted.

Small social groups, he said, were increasingly violating human rights. "In the case of heresy, for example, the public can openly take the law into their own hands against perceived perpetrators while civilian law enforcers, such as the police, prosecutors and the judiciary, seem powerless to do anything," he said.

Meanwhile, reports have been submitted to the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute to the effect that military groups at the territorial levels such as Babinsa (noncommissioned officers for village control) and Koramil (the military command at the district level) have taken over the role of the police.

"There have already been instances where Babinsa and Koramil officers, for example, inquired about licensing. Have they ever been assigned a responsibility like this before?" he said.

Nationwide, the condition is not much different.

Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appears to welcome the movement to uphold human rights, other groups do not want to see human rights properly exercised in Indonesia.

Deddy took as an example the murder of human rights activist Munir. "The dialog between the fact-finding team for Munir's case and the President has been illuminating, and the President has even issued a decree on the matter.

"Ironically, the decree seems to have had no effect on several high-ranking military officers. This is really an undesirable state of affairs," he said.

"The President is being held hostage by the actions of just a few people," he added.