Watching Human Rights in Indonesia: A Verdict on President Jokowi’s First Year

Indonesian President Joko (“Jokowi”) Widodo was inaugurated in October 2014.  He is the country’s seventh president, but only its second to be directly elected and its first from both a non-elite and non-military background.  He won the election by a narrow margin over a hard-line ex-general accused of violating human rights.

Human rights abuses have long marred Indonesian rule in western Papua.  Candidate Jokowi promised to improve conditions there.  He traveled to the area twice during the election campaign.  His predecessor visited Papua only three times during his entire ten-year presidency.  Jokowi also promised to protect religious minorities from violence, intolerance, and discrimination, and to help reconcile survivors of the mass bloodletting in 1965-66.  Has he kept these and other commitments to improve human rights conditions in Indonesia?  Or not?  And why?

Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. Organizations that he has helped to establish include a journalist-training organization, the Pantau Foundation (Jakarta, 2003); the South East Asia Press Alliance (Bangkok, 1998); and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Jakarta, 1994).  He began his career as a reporter for The Nation (Bangkok) and the Star newspapers (Kuala Lumpur), and has edited a monthly magazine on media and journalism, Pantau (Jakarta).  He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2000.