Nivell Rayda – Human rights advocates had reason to rejoice this year as the much contested 1963 Law on Securing Printed Materials was annulled in October.
The Constitutional Court ruled that the authority to ban books considered "disrupting public order," which had been held by the Attorney General's Office, lies in the hands of the judiciary with formal appeal mechanisms.
Other than that, though, the year was marked by a continued wait for old human rights cases to be resolved and the emergence of shocking new ones.
Unresolved cases
In 2009, the House of Representatives (DPR) pushed the government to form a fact-finding team that would look into the kidnapping and murder of at least 24 activists during the 1998 student movement that toppled the Suharto regime.
But throughout 2010, despite weekly rallies by families of the victims in front of the presidential palace, no action was taken.
It was no surprise, then, that activists and victims' families were outraged when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono picked Gen. Timur Pradopo to head the National Police in October.
Timur was chief of the West Jakarta precinct during the May 1998 shooting of student activists at Trisakti University. He was also the Central Jakarta precinct's chief when two other shootings of student activists in the Semanggi area happened later the same year.
The National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had identified Timur as one of those responsible for the death of the students in 1998. Despite this, the House unanimously backed Timur's nomination to the top police post.
Worrisome developments
Shortly before Timur was appointed, the police issued a regulation allowing officers to use live ammunition to control anarchic situations and riots. Although the regulation says officers are only allowed to shoot to immobilize and not to kill, activists are concerned over the potential for abuse.
The regulation was seen as a response to a bloody brawl between rival gangs in front of a court building in South Jakarta in which three people were killed and dozens injured.
But activists are more concerned over a possible repeat of an incident in September, where police in Buol, Central Sulawesi, fired shots into a crowd of protesters, killing five people and wounding 23.
A few weeks later police killed four people in Wamena, Papua, after several civilians refused to have their bags checked by airport security personnel.
Police said they were attacked in both cases. Several officers involved in the Buol incident later received mild sanctions. No investigation was conducted for the shootings in Wamena.
Problematic provinces
The police force is not the only institution criticized by human rights watchdogs. In October, a 10-minute video circulated on the Internet showing soldiers interrogating and torturing two civilians in Puncak Jaya, Papua.
In the video, which received international condemnation, the soldiers were seen burning the genitals of one of the civilians with a smoldering stick while the other was threatened with a knife.
Yudhoyono quickly ordered a probe and the military later court-martialed four officers, the highest in rank being a lieutenant.
But activists and the media soon realized that the tribunal was for an unrelated case of torture, also caught on tape, at which soldiers were seen hitting civilians with helmets at a military checkpoint in Papua.
In Maluku in August, 18 activists from the South Maluku Republic (RMS) were arrested after trying to unfurl the banned Benang Radja flag in front of Yudhoyono during the Sail Banda festival.
The activists' lawyer Semuel Wailaruny said police exerted violence during interrogations. "They were blindfolded with duct tapes, they were beaten, their heads were slammed and they were kicked in the stomach."
One of the RMS activists, Yonias Siahaya, was left paralyzed from the waist down from the alleged torture, the lawyer said. But police said the injuries were sustained while the men were resisting arrest.
The incident led RMS activists in the Netherlands to file a motion at a Dutch court demanding Yudhoyono's arrest during a state visit to the country. The court later rejected the motion, but not before Yudhoyono cancelled his planned visit to the Netherlands.
Finding a solution
"The only way for human rights violations to stop is for the government to enact an amendment to the military tribunal law," said Poengky Indarti, executive director of the human rights group Imparsial.
The proposed amendment stipulates that all soldiers involved in criminal acts would be tried in civilian courts, while military tribunals would be reserved for acts of insubordination or administrative violations.
But Indria Fernida, deputy chairwoman of Kontras, said the abuses would only stop once the ban on the Morning Star and Benang Raja flags used by separatist groups in Papua and Maluku is repealed.
"The ban has been abused by the military to justify the killing and torture of civilians," she said.
"It also inhibits freedom of expression because both flags have significant cultural meaning for the locals. The government must address the core problem and seek political means to resolve the turmoil, and not see everything as a security issue and stigmatize Papuans as separatists."