M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The country's human rights record remained poor in 2004, with state-sponsored violence and the cycle of impunity still persisting, a rights group says.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (PBHI) said in its annual report released on Tuesday that in most human rights abuse cases, the state could be blamed for abetting if not actually committing the crimes, and for failing to take enough action to prevent them.

In the report, the PBHI found that human rights abuses committed against civilians by state institutions were widespread in conflict zones.

"In 2004, we found 111 cases of human rights abuses in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), ranging from arbitrary arrest and seizure to torture and kidnapping," the report said.

It registered four incidences of rights abuses in Papua, where the Free Papua Organization (OPM) had been seeking independence from Indonesia since the late 1960s.

The rights group based its figures on cases of human rights violations in which the PBHI was involved in providing advocacy and legal aid on behalf of the victims.

The report also highlighted the fact that despite the establishment of a high-profile human rights tribunal, almost all of the defendants walked free.

"The state has not done enough to seek legal redress against the perpetrators of human rights violations and this has resulted in impunity. It is very strange that there are so many victims of rights abuses but no one is held accountable for them," the report said.

The report highlighted the fact that most of the military personnel who were implicated in human rights abuses during the mayhem that followed a United Nations-sponsored ballot in East Timor in 1999 were acquitted by an the rights tribunal.

The PBHI said that these acquittals were the result of political intervention involving high-profile state officials.

Besides being responsible for human rights abuses, the PBHI also found that the state was guilty of violating the basic economic rights of its citizens.

It said that the use of eviction by administrations as a tool to achieve quick and arbitrary solutions to land disputes was widespread in 2004.

"The eviction of the students of SMP 56 in South Jakarta is one among many immediate examples of the widespread use of eviction. This case shows us that the government backed business interests at the expense of the public interest," the report said.

PBHI executive director Johnson Panjaitan also criticized the country's current leadership.

"Respect for human rights was the main campaign theme of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, but after almost three months in office we can see that nothing has been done," Johnson said, adding that both figures were partly responsible for human rights in the previous administration. Susilo was coordinating minister for security and political affairs while Kalla was involved in handling communal conflicts around the country.

He said that neither Susilo nor Kalla had achieved anything of note in their previous posts, and that nothing much in the way of improvement could be expected from them