Lhokseumawe – Around 1000 women from the Inong Aceh League demonstrated in the North Acehnese city of Lhokseumawe on Monday August 7. The were demanding that the Indonesian Government, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) and the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) revise the Law on Aceh Governance as it is not in accordance with the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Inong Aceh League chairperson Sabariah Nasier is asking that the use of the legal terms on the issue of authority that is extremely limited in the political field and on human rights issues accommodate the MoU that was signed by the Indonesian government and GAM in Helsinki.

After giving speeches, the demonstrators who came from the North Aceh regency and Lhokseumawe held a march around the city through Jl. Protokol. In order to maintain order, a number of police officers directed traffic.

It is not just Inong Aceh that has protesting the Aceh Governance Law, GAM has also raised question over several articles in the law that was ratified by the House of Representatives on July 11. In order to resolve these problems the government should facilitate a meeting between GAM and the AMM to study the problematic articles.

[Translated by James Balowski.]