Achmad Nasrudin Yahya, Jakarta – The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and its 16 regional offices have strongly condemned a firebomb terror attack on the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) office in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta on Saturday September 18.
YLBHI advocacy division head Muhammad Isnur is urging law enforcement officials to immediately arrest the perpetrator of the attack.
"And fully investigate the terror attack involving the throwing of a Molotov bomb at the LBH Yogyakarta office so that incidents such as this are not repeated", asserted Isnur in a press release on Monday September 20.
The YLBHI has also asked the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to monitor developments in the case.
This is to ensure protection for legal aid providers and human rights defenders for the sake of advancing human rights and upholding the law.
Isnur asserted that the attack will not make legal aid providers step back and they will continue to assist people in fighting for justice, including the advance of democracy and human rights in different parts of the country.
"We invite all elements of society to stand in solidarity and monitor the exposure of this case [so that it is] clear and complete", he said.
As has been reported, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the Yogyakarta LBH office in the early hours of Saturday morning.
LBH Yogyakarta Director Yogi Zul Fadhil said that the attack was only discovered at around 5 am when a staff member saw that part of the office had been burnt.
"So it's estimated that the incident occurred after 1 am in the morning until sometime before 5 am in the morning", Fadhil told journalists on Saturday.
Fadhil was unable to give an exact time because the CCTV camera had not been functioning for some time.
The LBH Yogyakarta is currently handling a number of structural cases, not just in Yogyakarta but also in several parts of Central Java.
"Such as assisting farmers in Wadas, Central Java, defending a Proclamation 45 University lecturer, then assisting civil society on the prohibitions on demonstrations in the Malioboro [shopping district], and assisting local people impacted upon by the coal-fired power plant in Cilacap", he said.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "YLBHI dan 16 Kantornya Kutuk Teror Bom Molotov di Kantor LBH Yogyakarta".]
