In
commemorating the thirteen years after the killing of human rights defender
Munir Said Thalib, 7th of September 2017, the undersigned regional and
international human rights organizations call on the Indonesian President Joko
Widodo to take decisive and concrete action to ensure those responsible –
including those at the highest levels – are brought to justice. As a first key
step towards establishing the truth, President Widodo must release the 2005
report prepared by an official fact-finding team into Munir’s killing. Munir
was a prominent Indonesian human rights campaigner who took up the cause of dozens
of activists who had been subjected to enforced disappearances during the last
months of the Suharto’s regime in 1998.
As
a human rights defender, Munir played a significant role in uncovering evidence
of security forces’ responsibility for human rights violations in Aceh, Papua
and Timor-Leste. He received numerous threats as a result of his human rights
work. In August 2003, a bomb exploded outside his home in Jakarta. In 2002 and
2003, the KontraS (the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence)
office where he worked was attacked by a mob, who destroyed office equipment
and forcibly took files containing information about ongoing human rights
investigations.
Munir
was found dead on a Garuda Airlines flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on 7 September
2004. An autopsy carried out by the Dutch authorities showed that he died as a
result of arsenic poisoning. In December 2004 the Indonesian authorities formed
an official fact-finding team to investigate the murder. Although three Garuda
Airlines staff were convicted of the killing, there are credible allegations
that those responsible at the highest levels of government have not yet been
brought to justice. In 2008, Muchdi Purwoprandjono, a former deputy director of
the state intelligence agency, was acquitted of soliciting and assisting in the
killing of Munir. Indonesian law scholars and human rights groups found that
the trial was fundamentally flawed. Key prosecution witnesses retracted their
sworn testimonies and failed to testify in court. In February 2010, the
National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) also identified flaws in the
police investigation, prosecution and trial of Muchdi Purwoprandjono and
recommended a new police investigation.
In
September 2016, President Widodo made a public pledge to resolve the case of
Munir. But the Indonesian authorities have still not published the 2005 report
of the independent fact-finding team on Munir’s killing, whose finding
reportedly implicated senior intelligence officers. This violates the Presidential
Decree No. 111/2004 on the establishment of the fact finding team on Munir’s
killing which obliged the government to make the report public.
In
October 2016, the Public Information Commission ruled that the 2005 report
should be made public after Suciwati, Munir’s wife, filed a public information
request to the Commission. However, in February 2017, the Administrative Court
repealed the Commission’s decision on the grounds that the current government
under the administration of President Widodo had not received the report from
the previous government and therefore did not possess the document. Subsequently,
in August 2017, the Supreme Court upheld the Administrative Court’s decision
and the report has yet to be made public.
Our
organizations believe that Munir’s case cannot be seen in isolation, but is
indicative of the wider culture of impunity surrounding attacks and harassment
of human rights defenders in the country. The lack of full accountability in
Munir's case contributes to an ongoing climate of fear among human rights
defenders.
We,
the undersigned regional and international civil society organizations
therefore urge the President of Indonesia Joko Widodo to take the following
steps as a matter of priority:
- Publish
the 2005 report of the fact-finding team into Munir’s killing as a key step
towards establishing the truth;
- Establish
a new, independent investigation into the murder of Munir to ensure that all
those suspected of being responsible, at all levels, are brought to justice in
proceedings that adhere to international human rights standards;
- Review
the past criminal proceedings conducted by the Attorney General into Munir’s
killing, including alleged violations of international human rights law; in
particular, investigate reports of witness intimidation and bring those
suspected of committing them to justice;
- Take
effective steps to ensure that human rights violations committed against all
human rights defenders are promptly, effectively and impartially investigated
and that those responsible are brought to justice in fair trials; and
- Create
a safe and enabling legal environment for human rights defenders by enacting
laws on the protection of human rights defenders.
This
joint statement is endorsed by:
Amnesty
International Indonesia
AHRC
(Asian Human Rights Commission)
AFAD
(Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances)
AJAR
(Asia Justice and Rights)
ETAN
(East Timor & Indonesia Action Network)
OBS
(The Observatory for Protections of Human Rights Defender OBS)
FORUM-ASIA
(Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development)
Human
Rights First
Human
Rights Watch
Protection
International
TAPOL
UK
Watch
Indonesia!
For
more information on Munir, please see: https://hrdmemorial.org/hrdrecord/munir-said-thalib/
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