Jakarta – The head of the National Liberation Party of Unity’s (Papernas) political affairs department, Dominggus Oktavianus, says that they will suit the mass organisations that perpetrated the attack on a peaceful action by Papernas on Thursday last week. Dominggus said that Papernas has already appointed a team of lawyers who are planning to submit the suit on Tuesday March 3.

Speaking in Jakarta on March 1, he also said that they would be submitting a suit over the vilification of the party’s name by these groups. According to Dominggus the accusation that Papernas has a communist ideology is a lethal political stigma. In the past this kind of stigmatisation was an effective means used by those in power to silence is critics in Indonesia. Now of course this stigmatisation contradicts the concept of democracy that is currently developing and growing in Indonesia.

Dominggus also said he deplores the police’s failure to act firmly against these groups. Because of this, they also want to know who is behind them. “Because, those on the ground don’t actually know where their problems lie. They act based only on prejudices and slander that then culminates in political action,” he said.

The general secretary of the Poor People’s Union (SRMK), Marlo, also said that as protector of the people the government or the state must fully investigate the attack against Papernas and must take a firm stand against social groups that frequently take the law into their own hands. The violent and destructive actions by social groups such as this not only denigrates the law but is also a violation of democracy. (JOS)

[Translated by James Balowski.]