Singapore/Jakarta: Four Indonesian military officers have been arrested in connection with an alleged chemical attack on a young Indonesian activist who had long been critical of the country’s security forces and had investigated their conduct during last year’s deadly nationwide protests.
Shocking CCTV footage and sound of the attack, verified by Indonesian police, shows Andrie Yunus, 27, screaming in agony and ripping off his clothes on a busy Central Jakarta street on the night of March 12 as confused bystanders rush to his aid.
Moments earlier, he had been riding his motorbike home after recording a podcast about the Indonesian military’s ballooning role in civilian affairs, when two riders travelling in the opposite direction passed within centimetres and allegedly flung liquid at him.
Andrie, an activist with the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), remains in a high care unit in hospital with eye damage and burns to more than 20 per cent of his body.
On Thursday, Indonesian authorities had arrested six people – four of them from the military’s intelligence unit. It was unclear whether the other two were the alleged assailants on the motorbike.
The attack has sent a chill through Indonesian human rights groups, who say it is part of a pattern of intimidation by the nation’s most powerful.
Close to 700 organisations and individuals from around the world, including 26 from Australia, signed a letter to the Indonesian government condemning the attack.
“If a human rights defender can be brutally assaulted in a public space in the nation’s capital, this demonstrates how fragile state protection is for citizens who fight for justice and how narrow the safe space for human rights advocacy has become in Indonesia,” the letter said.
Many Indonesians are concerned that President Prabowo Subianto is emulating his former father-in-law, the autocrat Suharto, who ruled for 32 years, by giving the military an expanded role in public life and allowing active-duty officers to fill government jobs.
Almost a year to the day before he was attacked, Andrie and others interrupted a closed-door meeting of politicians in Jakarta who were discussing such laws, the letter said.
In addition, the rights groups said Andrie was a member of a fact-finding commission into the actions of security forces during mass protests in August last year.
The commission’s report, compiled after a five-month investigation, found the forces “had used force disproportionately, conducted mass arrests, [and] committed alleged torture and large-scale criminalisation against activists and civilians,” the letter said.
The Indonesian government this week praised the military and police for the quick arrest of people suspected of involvement in the attack.
“The government reiterates that any act of violence is unacceptable under any circumstances. Legal proceedings will be carried out firmly, transparently, and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations,” it said.
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Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
Karuni Rompies is assistant Indonesia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X.