SBY Is No
Statesman!
Peaceful Picket
Thursday, May 30, 2013, 5:30-7:30pm The Pierre Hotel, 2 E 61st St., New York City
Oppose the World Statesman
Award to President Yudhoyono
from the Appeal of Conscience
Foundation
Bring your own signs
and banners highlighting the ongoing human rights issues in
Indonesia, including attacks on religious freedom, lack of justice for past human rights violations, and ongoing rights abuses in West Papua and elsewhere.
(Should the Appeal of
Conscience Foundation withdraw the award,
we will hold a celebration outside the hotel.)
Download, print and
distribute flyer promoting demonstration (PDF)
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by Rev. Elice Higginbotham,
Member, Executive Committee, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network
JAKARTA -- The room was papered - literally - with signatures.
The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace convened a media conference of the Civil Society Coalition for Freedom of Religion/Conviction Thursday, May 23, at a Jakarta hotel. A wide range of NGOs, human rights organizations, and representatives of minority religious organizations - non-Sunni Muslims, Christians, "non-recognized" religious groups - gathered to express their opposition to the "World Statesman Award" that the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation proposes to present on May 30 to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"No Award For SBY," an on-line petition by ETAN and another Indonesia-based one, were the visual symbols of broad, unified Indonesian and international opposition to the Foundation's choice: The walls of the room were covered with page after page of the names of signers, surrounding the 17 speakers, the TV cameras, print reporters, bloggers and interested others.
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| Petition signatures paper the wall. |
I met and spoke briefly with Imam Shofwan, a young journalist who grew up in a traditional Islamic political organization. He expresses deep offense at the idea of honoring SBY while religious violence is on the increase in Indonesia and the government refuses to enforce the rights of religious minorities. Imam generated his own on-line petition, initially in support of an open letter by an Indonesian Jesuit professor of philosophy who wrote the Appeal of Conscience Foundation a painstakingly-worded critique of SBY's failures of leadership with regard to the protection of minority rights. Imam's petition, posted only a couple weeks ago, hit an instant chord in Indonesia. Signatures, now merged with those of ETAN's petition, total close to 6,000, says Imam.
"Some government spokespeople told me that Muslims are very angry at [the Jesuit Professor] Romo Suseno's letter, that this is a Muslin country and I shouldn't be supporting someone who speaks badly of us. I told them to look at the 6,000 signatures!" Imam told me.
Among the speakers was an early ETAN activist, the Rev. Max Surjadinata, who attempted to meet with the Appeal to Conscience's president during a recent visit to New York and deliver letters expressing opposition to the award from the GKI Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia churches, which represent two of the more public recent examples of religious discrimination and violence in Indonesia. Although he had been given an appointment upon phoning the Foundation, Max was rebuffed by security staff when he arrived at the door. The guard took the letters, saying he would make sure they were delivered.
The Yasmin and Filadelfia congregations are still waiting for an answer.
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