Dessy Sagita – In a highly charged meeting with the National Commission on Human Rights, residents of Mesuji district in Lampung sought protection and said their suffering went beyond the cold-blooded killings of local farmers.

Neneng, a resident of Tuguroda hamlet in Mesuji, said she had been living in a makeshift tent with thousands of other residents whose homes had allegedly been destroyed by the henchmen of a plantation company, Silva Inhutani, that was attempting to take their land while the police stood by.

"Your children are still going to school, but my children don't even know when their next meal is going to be," she shouted during the meeting in Jakarta with the commission, known as Komnas HAM. "We've lost our homes and our livelihood, and we are still harassed even when we're walking down the street."

Neneng said complaints to local government officials and legislators had yielded nothing. "We don't even have water, and we live in fear on our own land, land that we have been living on since the day we were born," she said. "We can't wait anymore, I'm going crazy."

Another resident, Wayan Sukadana, said his brother, Made, had been shot in April and put in prison, where he died. "I want the company's operations to be halted immediately," he said. "And please withdraw the [police] Mobile Brigade and military from Mesuji, because they are only making things worse."

The meeting followed one on Wednesday during which villagers shocked lawmakers at the House of Representatives with footage allegedly showing several killings. They claim 30 farmers have been killed between 2009 and 2011.

Police have denied this, saying some of the footage shows unrelated incidents and that no such killing have occurred in Lampung.

About 200 members of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and its leader, Habib Rizieq, accompanied the Mesuji residents to Thursday's meeting.

Habib said the FPI had sent people to Mesuji to learn the truth. "People are being denied ID cards and thousands of people – Muslims, Christians and Hindus – cannot pray," he said. "It's a serious human rights violation."