Muhammad Aminudin, Malang – Seven young people in the East Java city of Malang took turns in reading out quotes from the Fact Finding Team (TPF) report on the assassination of Munir.
The event calls into question a government statement last year that the TPF Munir report has disappeared. The document titled "Quotes from the final TPF Munir Report" was 12 pages long.
In addition to reading out the TPF report, the event which was initiated by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and Kalimetro Coffee, also held a screening of a film on renowned human rights defender Munir Said Thalib who was murdered 15 years ago. The event was held at the Kalimetro Coffee Shop on Jl Joyosuko Metro in Malang on Wednesday October 16.
Kontras Coordinator Yati Andriani said that while the government has declared that the TPF report has disappeared and its whereabouts are unknown, young people here in Malang have been able to prove that the document does in fact exist.
"This is what we're alluding to, while the government has declared that the TPF Munir document has been lost or they don't know where it is, young people here can show that the document, if they want to look for it, does exist and it's quite possible to release it to the public", Andriani told journalists at the event.
"Young people who have no political authority can read it out, so then why does the state, which has the political authority, law enforcement officials and those in power, not have the courage to do so", she added.
According to Andriani, if the government wishes to remain silent, then the public's voice has the power to push for the Munir case to be solved. Because, the TPF report is public property, which the government should release to the public. This is because the TPF was formed based on Government Decree Number 111/2004 on the Formation of a Fact Finding Team into the death of Munir.
"Our power is the determination and the pressure of the public. When the government is silent, our power is the public's voice, for [all those] cases which have yet to be resolved. One of which is Cak [Brother] Munir. Hopefully this can be an evaluation of the government so it will quickly resolve the Munir case", she said.
When asked what facts are revealed in the TPF document, Andriani said that the TPF report is not only filled with information and words. Rather, the document explains what happened very well.
"And it's true, there was an evil plot to assassinate Munir and it was a conspiracy, that's the first thing. Next there is the points on how Munir's assassination made use of the authority of state agencies, which are suspected to be in this case the State Intelligence Agency [BIN], and also cited in the document, are the names of BIN members or former members of BIN at the time", explained Andriani.
She added that the third point reveals the suspected involvement of the airline Garuda Indonesia as one of the companies which was used to plan Munir's assassination. And also the difficulties faced by the TPF members in their efforts to gather evidence and information about the assassination.
"Among the difficulties that were faced was the lack of cooperation by the State Intelligence Agency. I think that we are still facing this problem. So to this day the Munir case has still not been solved, because the state authorities don't have the courage to fully investigate it. There are strong suspicions that these people have backgrounds, strong political positions, and even now the people who are suspected are in fact being protected by being in the inner circles of government power", she explained.
According to Andriani, the government's tactic of stating that the TPF report has disappeared or they don't know its whereabouts so that it doesn't have to release the report to the public is quite sad.
"This really insults our commonsense. So in reading out the Munir TPF document, once again, it is actually a way to maintain our commonsense and say we don't want to keep being lied to by the government", said Andriani. (iwd/iwd)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Tujuh Anak Muda di Malang Bacakan Dokumen TPF Munir".]