Aceh ‘Punks’ Arrested for ‘Re-education’

December 13, 2011

Banda Aceh. Dozens of young people were being held and punished by Aceh police on Tuesday for the supposed crime of being “punk,” despite not being charged with any crime nor being brought before a court.

The 64 music lovers, some of whom had come from as far as Jakarta and West Java, were arrested by regular and Shariah police as they held a charity concert in Banda Aceh’s Taman Budaya park on Saturday night.

Banda Aceh police took the arrestees on Tuesday afternoon to the Aceh State Police School for “reeducation.” Aceh police chief Ins. Gen. Iskandar Hasan described the punishment awaiting them when they reached the police school in the Seulawah hills, 62 kilometers east of he capital.

“There will be a traditional ceremony. First their hair will be cut. Then they will be tossed into a pool. The women’s hair we’ll cut in the fashion of a female police officer,” Iskander said on Tuesday. “Then we’ll teach them a lesson.”

Iskander denied the punishment constituted a breach of human rights.

“We’ll change their disgusting clothes. We’ll replace them with nice clothes. We’ll give them toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, sandals and prayer gear. It will all be given to them,” he said. “I’ll remind [police] not to breach human rights. We are oriented to educating our community, our nation. This is our country too, right?”

Iskandar said he would invite the Muslim Cleric Council to participate in “restoring their [the arrestees’] right thinking and morals.”

Human rights groups opposed the action.

Evi Narti Zain, executive director of the Aceh Human Rights Coalition, said the police’s action was violent and illegal.

“What is this education? The police’s action is inconsistent because the punks did nothing wrong,” Evi said. “Punk music is their way of expressing themselves. It is normal and is found all around the world. It’s their right to express their freedom. There’s nothing wrong with punk kids.”

Aceh Legal Aid Foundation’s director, Hospinovizal Sabri, said he had tried to get the young people released since their arrest on Saturday night.

“On the night the punks were arrested by the Police and Shariah Police we met with them, and we went again to the police station and spoke to some of them this morning [Tuesday],” Hospinovizal said. “We are working hard to have them released because they have breached no law.”

Hospinovizal said he aimed to take a habeas corpus type action before a judge to have the court force the police to release the young people. “There’s a perception from some quarters in Aceh that they are human rubbish, but it is clear they are innocent and are only expressing their independence in their own way.”

Iskandar said their date of release would “depend on the budget from the regional government.”


( a "priceless" gem out of the JG)

There are two things that stand out for me in this article:

1. It was a charity concert... apparently held to raise funds for an orphanage, if I google 'Street Punk charity Aceh'. And a specifically punk-oriented charity concert at that. It seems strange to me that first they'd give them the green light to hold the concert if there's so much anti-punk sentiment in Aceh.

2. As some of these boys and girls are from provinces on Java, do Aceh authorities even have the right to 're-educate' teenagers who don't even reside in Aceh? I realise Aceh has its own laws as a special province of RI, but for the people who are from other provinces in Sumatra and Java, you'd expect a slap on the wrist and sending them back home would be all that Aceh's local gov't could do.

December 17, 2011

‘Punk’s Not Dead’ Despite Aceh Arrests

Banda Aceh. Amid rows of youths dressed in police uniforms, 15-year-old Arismunadar kept his head bowed and answered in brief snatches when questioned about his treatment at the police camp in Lembah Seulawah, Aceh Besar district.

The high school student from Medan, North Sumatra, is among 64 punk music lovers undergoing “re-education” in the camp, about 60 kilometers from the provincial capital, after they were arrested last Saturday night.

They were taken to the camp after spending three nights in the Banda Aceh Police jail, where they were held after being arrested at a punk music charity concert they had organized with permission from city authorities.

Arismunadar said his parents gave him permission to make the weekend trip north to Banda Aceh but he was upset and worried because he could not contact them.

“I don’t know what my parents’ reaction will be when they find out I have been taken here,” he said. “I want to talk to them but I can’t because the police have taken our mobile phones.”

Arismunadar said he was also worried about missing school, for which being taught by police “how to march in line and act politely” was little consolation.

Asked whether he would change his ways after the 10 days of camp detention, Arismunadar said, “I will still be a punk because I like it.”

M. Fauzie, one of the camp’s instructors, said the youths were being taught spiritual, moral and behavioral lessons. “We will teach them to wake up early, how to eat properly and how to behave politely,” he said.

On Friday morning, a Muslim cleric council delegation visited the camp and delivered a religious lecture to the youths, most of them in their twenties. At prayer time, police forced the detainees to don traditional Muslim dress and drove them in trucks to a nearby mosque.

There was little sign of a mass conversion to religious piety after the prayers, however.

“Punk’s not dead!” shouted Andre, 18, after being forced back onto the truck for the trip back to the police camp.

Andre, from Binjai in neighboring North Sumatra, said he was sick of the “re-education.”

“I’ll still be a punk when they let me go, because it’s my chosen life,” he said, adding that he had lived on the streets since he was young. “They can’t change the path I’ve taken.”

One of the female detainees, 20-year-old Intan Natalia, emphasized the creative spirit of the punk community.

“Punks are not about criminality,” said the Medan native. “Don’t look at us from a negative perspective, because we work, too. We create unique tattoos, T-shirt designs and piercings.”

She said she cried when her long, straight hair was cut in the style of female police officers.

“But what else could I do? If I protested, nobody would listen,” she said. “So I had to take it quietly while my beloved hair was chopped short.”

Intan, who was previously a university student in Jakarta, said she had been a punk since 2009 and enjoyed the feeling of solidarity it engendered. She went to Banda Aceh for the charity concert and said she was shocked when police raided the event.

“While the event was underway, we were suddenly arrested,” she said with a frown. “I don’t know why, because we hadn’t broken any laws.”

Aldi, 17, who makes a living printing T-shirts and stickers, said the “re-education” would not change him.

“After I get out of here I will still be a punk because I like the punk lifestyle,” he said. “I’m not a criminal and stealing is not part of punk ethos. If I was a thief, why would I be a punk?”

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak), said the detention without charge, the head shaving, the dousing ritual and the military-style treatment of the youths at the hands of the police was a breach of human rights.

“Is there a clause in the criminal code that makes self-expression in the punk style a crime? Then show me! This is too much,” he said.

Speaking in Jakarta on Friday, he said the youths were at risk of lasting trauma.

He also scoffed at a statement by Banda Aceh Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal that punk culture was a social disease that stained Islam’s reputation.

“The analogy is this: Look at my straggly beard,” he said, pointing at his whiskered chin. “This is my self-expression, and who’s to say it’s a sign of social disease?”


(this from the JG)

The Thinker: See No Prisoners?

Carmel Budiardjo December 14, 2011

According to Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, there are no political prisoners in Papua — only criminals who have broken the law. This is troubling news for Papuans such as Filep Karma, Forkorus Yaboisembut and others who are currently behind bars for expressing their beliefs.

Djoko’s statement late week is especially puzzling in light of an internal government document, titled “List of Political Prisoners Across Papua,” that was leaked earlier this year to Tapol. The document lists 25 Papuans detained for treason and related offenses. In addition to the government’s own records, numerous NGOs based in Jakarta and Papua, as well as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Tapol, all hold extensive data on political prisoners in Papua the put the number even higher.

According to Djoko, if organizations like Amnesty International consider the individuals in question to be political prisoners, this is only their perception, whereas from the point of view of national law they are criminals.

But this is not about perception; it is a question of international laws and standards to which Indonesia is an adherent. In the event that Indonesia’s national laws contravene these standards, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, then those national laws must be amended lest Indonesia stand in violation of its obligations. This has long been the position of Papuan civil society, whose calls for a judicial review of the treason laws that are used to criminalize freedom of expres​sion(in particular Article 106 of the Criminal Code) have been growing louder over the past year.

What senior Indonesian officials can all agree on is that they will not tolerate treason, and this has been clearly expressed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, military officials, senior police officials and lawmakers alike. However, an increasing number of elements within the government and judiciary recognize the need to develop a more finely nuanced understanding of treason that does not violate universal rights and international law.

In October 2010, Mahfud MD, the chairman of the Constitutional Court, joined the debate by arguing that demonstrations and treason are not the same thing. Expressing one’s aspirations is entirely legal in accordance with Indonesia’s human rights laws, he said, adding, “Why should we be scared of things like demonstrations? During reform in 1998, we all struggled so that activities like this could be carried out freely.”

The violence and arrests following the Third Papuan People’s Congress in October sparked a lively public debate about the issue of freedom of expression in Indonesia, and Frits Ramandey, secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, rejected the view that the meeting was treasonous. He challenged the police to take a broader view: “If we consider there to be an element of trying to form a new country, or to separate oneself from a legally valid country, then there has to be a military occupation to seize territory. In this case they didn’t seize anything, they just wanted to make a peaceful announcement. … That is not treason.”

It is not only Indonesians who are concerned for the fate of the country’s political prisoners. During a 2008 review of Indonesia by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the Netherlands, Canada and Ireland all expressed concerns about Indonesia’s use of treason laws to suppress freedom of expression. The UN’s judgment on arbitrary detentions went still further, ruling that the detention of Filep Karma, who was detained in 2004 and is serving a 15-year sentence for his connection with a peaceful flag-raising ceremony, is illegal and calling for the release of political prisoners.

In just five months’ time Indonesia is up for review at the Human Rights Council again. International concern about the issue is growing stronger all the time as the number of demonstrations in Papua continues to increase and the list of political prisoners grows longer.

In a democratic Indonesia, it is simply no longer appropriate to lock people up when they say things that the government does not like, and as the Jakarta-Papua dialogue initiative suggests, there are alternative ways to engage with Papua. If Indonesia is to move on from its painful past, it should heed the calls to release political prisoners and repeal anti-democratic laws that criminalize the freedom of expression. Only then will Djoko Suyanto truly be able to say that political prisoners no longer exist in Indonesia.



Carmel Budiardjo is a senior campaigner at Tapol, a Britain-based organization that works to promote human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia.

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