Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Some hundred workers in Medan, North Sumatra staged a rally on Saturday, calling on the government to address their rights and curb human rights violations.

Claiming themselves members of Indonesian Labor Union (SBSI) 92, they held the rally at Majestik cross section in downtown as part of a commemoration of International Human Rights Day.

They lambasted the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Boediono administration as not being serious in dealing with human rights issues.

They pointed to pitfalls with which the workers were still vulnerable and exposed to regarding repression by local administrations when they voiced their own freedom of expression.

They said the workers did not have a full share over the merit of the independence the nation declared 66 years ago. The workers' rights for decent living and justice have been blatantly overlooked, they said.

Rally coordinator Purwadi reminded the government about the workers' contribution to development of the nation. He deplored the government policy allowing the implementation of outsourcing labor recruitment, which he said was unfair.

He said fights for outsourcing recruitment abolition, as well as for freedom of expression, were liable to repression. "The repression showed over those two issues are akin to government's pillory on the workers' rights for justice and welfare," he told The Jakarta Post. He also blamed the discouraging labor condition on outside interference in domestic policy.

Foreign investors and developed countries were said to have provoked the government into restraining the workers' rights to gain a better future.

Majda El Muhtaj, head of Indonesia Human Rights Study Center with State Medan University, said fights for human rights in the country still ended up in an impasse.

Reported acts of intimidation, eviction, murder and persecution, for which the government seemed to show negligence, he said, were evidence of human rights violations in the country.

"Tears of helplessness and bitterness reported on the media, almost everyday, are evidence that the expected good governance that would see public services cater to all people is still under question," he said.