POLICE SHOT THE POOR

We rise every morning with mind full of problems: what should we do to survive, what should be done to educate our children as the school is unaffordable for us. So will our children be next to fill up millions of those unemployment troops?

Never a day passes without painful struggle. We survive by our selves. Here, you are living in the jungles of blocks, of walls, of buildings, where there is no leader to protect your basic rights.

40 millions people of Indonesian work force are unemployment. More than 6 million Children between ages of 7-14 are never went into school. The states is not only deny obligation to fulfill people’s economic and social rights but also answer the people problem with repression. Repression becomes common answer to the strike, to move the informal sectors result in the massive lay off.

Tri kuncoro, secretary of PAPERNAS Madiun Sub district earns his living as a street singer in Madiun Sub district, Central java.

At 9 mornings on January 2008 after he sang struggle song: our country and Marsinah[1], all of sudden Police Joko Sutrisno grabbed his collar and forced him to go out of the bus. When he was about to went out the buss police shot his right arms without giving any warning shot. He is hospitalized for the fracture on his hand bone.

This indicates that the repression and militaristic character remain attached in the states apparatus in dealing with the people’s problem, in particular poor people. The National Liberation Party urges the police institution to responsible to this repression as well as responsible for victim’s health and economy and put the shooter to trial.

Police institution has been claimed that there has been a reform within the institution but this incident showing different things. Therefore, we consider that police and state apparatus must acknowledge Human Rights starting from its recruitment, education as well as the daily task. State must also take the welfare of the low-rank police to prevent psychology burden due to the economic burden. (** Katarina Pujiastuti)

[1] MARSINAH: Marsinah was a women activist who led a strike at the PT Catur Putra Surya watch factory in Surabaya , East Java . On May 8, 1993, three days after the strike, her body was found in a remote hut. The medical examination found that she had died as a result of injuries inflicted during torture. Although there was considerable circumstantial evidence that she had been kidnapped and killed by the military, in 1994 nine managerial personnel and security guards from the factory were tried and convicted of the murder. All of the defendants claimed that they had been tortured in order to extract confessions. On May 5, 1995, all nine were released.