Sunudyantoro/Rohman Taufiq, Surabaya – Today, three years ago, human rights activist Munir died on a flight from Jakarta via Singapore to Amsterdam. A peaceful action commemorating his death was held in front of the State Grahadi Building in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya on Friday September 7.

The 40 or so people that took part in the action wore black T-shirts and prayed that the Munir murder case be solved quickly. They also reminded the public to continue supporting the struggle to uphold freedom and to hold human rights in the highest esteem.

Action coordinator M Saiful Aris from the Surabaya Legal Aid Foundation said that a final resolution to Munir’s murder had entered an important round, that is a judicial review of the suspect Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto. The various pieces of new evidence presented by the public prosecutor has captured the public’s attention. “Certainly there are many issues and intelligence games behind Munir’s murder”, he said.

Nevertheless said Aris, it still feels as if the judicial review will be inadequate to uncover all of the plots and exactly who should take responsibility for Munir’s murder. Aris also said that we still have a lot of homework that must be done together in order to force the state to be serious about and have the courage to seek and ask for responsibility for Munir’s murder.

Aris asserted that for the community of human rights defenders, Munir’s murder has more meaning that just being aimed at murdering Munir and silencing his criticisms. “It indicates that there are excessive signs of resistance on the part of certain groups over the presence of critical groups and efforts to promote the defense of human rights”, he said.

[Translated by James Balowski.]