Human Rights

Legal reform must overcome a history of authoritarian development

Indonesia’s brave experiment in reinventing its legal system

There is no home and no justice for failed asylum seekers.

Pramoedya's reputation is still dogged by the cultural polemics of the Sukarno era

An activist reflects on Pramoedya’s significance for young Indonesians.

A younger writer remembers Pramoedya’s influence on his own life and work.

Pramoedya the writer was also an historian who loved his country.

Plea for West Papua

Chinese Confucianism is recognised again as an official religion.

Missionaries and the military co-operate in converting the Asmat to Christianity.

The Islamic sect Ahmadiyah has been under official pressure and violent attack.

Indonesia has made only some legislative progress toward religious freedom, but the greatest freedom is the openness of debate.

Workers unite to win severance pay for retrenched Securicor Indonesia employees.

The Suharto Government's political prisoners have only very rarely been allowed to speak. Here, for the first time, we have an autobiographical story written by a woman, the wife of an ex-tapol, the mother of his child.

The following excerpts are taken from a diary of letters kept by an Australian woman who lived in Java, Kalimantan and Bali for nine years. In this letter, written in January 1978, the author describes her visit to a detention camp for women political prisoners Just after Christmas 1977. The prisoners have since been released.

The letter begins with a description of the long drive from Semarang west to Pelantungan where the camp was located up in the mountains. The visit was arranged by a Dutch pastor, 'Co'. Fenton-Huie was accompanied by the pastor's wife, Phia, and a Dutch nursing sister, Truus. After abandoning their car which could not travel the last stretch of the rough rocky road, the women had to walk the final kilometres to the camp, which also held 40 delinquent boys. The visitors shared a simple Indonesian meal in the house of one of the guards before entering 'a large barracks-type hall' to witness the camp's Christmas concert.