Indonesian activists face possible death sentence

Indonesian democracy activists will shortly go on trial for their lives. The chief judge of the Central Jakarta court has announced that the trials of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) prisoners and that of union leader Muchtar Pakpahan will start on December 12. The chief judge of the South Jakarta court made a similar announcement. There is no confirmation yet of trial dates for the PRD prisoners in Surabaya, but lawyers expect those to start at a similar time.

Muchtar Pakpahan, PRD secretary-general Petrus Haryanto and several SMID (Student Solidarity for Indonesian Democracy) activists will be tried in Central Jakarta. PRD president Budiman Sujatmiko, SMID West Jakarta branch chairperson Garda Sembiring and SMID activist Eko Kurniawan will be tried in South Jakarta court.

There is no confirmation of the trials of PRD executive members Wilson and Astika Anom and PRD activist Wignyo.

It was announced that the court will sit every Monday and Thursday. Defence lawyer Sugeng Teguh Santoso told the press that the trials seemed to be planned to finish well before the May general elections. He said that they would run a marathon schedule, holidaying only on December 25 and 26, December 31 and January 1, which (except for December 26) are not Mondays or Thursdays in any case.

According to Sugeng Santoso, the government is worried that the defendants will use the courts as a means of pursuing their political campaigns and appeals to the people.

According to Johnson Panjaitan, a lawyer from the Jesuit Jakarta Social Institute, the government is also likely to start the trials of two other defendants early in the new year. One is Aberson Sihalolo, an outspoken parliamentarian from the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) who frequently met delegations of workers and students that took their protests to parliament. He has been the PDI leader most supportive of the PRD demand for the repeal of all the repressive political laws.

The other is Sandyawan, a Jesuit priest, who formed a volunteers team to help the wounded on July 27 and later sheltered leaders of the PRD. Neither of these two have yet been remanded in detention.

The defence lawyers have now received the full indictments, some, as in the case against Petrus Haryanto, amounting to 1000 pages. Panjaitan stated that the accusation of being involved in the July 27 riots has almost vanished from the indictments. The new focus is subversion through spreading subversive ideas and organising political actions through 1995. The charge of subversion carries a possible death penalty.

The case against the PRD for being behind the July 27 riots was blown apart when the National Human Rights Commission report laid the full blame on the government. In a surprise move, leading members of the commission visited the PRD prisoners and Muchtar Pakpahan accompanied by the media to check on their situation.

In an equally surprise move, the newly installed leadership of the dictatorship's puppet union, the Federated All Indonesia Workers Union (FSPSI), also visited Muchtar Pakpahan. The new FSPSI leadership told the media that "they were human too" and felt for Muchtar but that they could do nothing to help him.

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