Category: Indonesia

Solidarity action in Istanbul/Turkey for the 64 punks arrested in Aceh/Indonesia

Contributed by: aforum

On the 11th of December 2011, in the very conservative and religious province of Aceh in Indonesia, 64 punks who were attending a punkrock show, were arrested and taken to jail without any criminal charges whatsoever. The only reason for them to be victim of that totally arbitrary state repression was that they are punks. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings, their clothes were taken away from them, replaced by “decent” ones and they were forced to wash themselves in a “religious ritual”. Then they were brainwashed and “re-educated” for ten days through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

Solidarity action in Istanbul/Turkey for the 64 punks arrested in Aceh/Indonesia

On the 11th of December 2011, in the very conservative and religious province of Aceh in Indonesia, 64 punks who were attending a punkrock show, were arrested and taken to jail without any criminal charges whatsoever.

The only reason for them to be victim of that totally arbitrary state repression was that they are punks. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings, their clothes were taken away from them, replaced by “decent” ones and they were forced to wash themselves in a “religious ritual”. Then they were brainwashed and “re-educated” for ten days through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

Against this outrageous police action, solidarity actions and demonstration took place in Moscow, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, China and Malaysia.

On the 24th of December a solidarity concert for the Indonesian punks was organized in Istanbul with the Hardcore/Punk bands POSTER-ITI and FRANKENSTEIN to inform people and gather supporters for the protest on the following day.

On the 25th of December at 3:00 in the afternoon, as a sign of solidarity with the “Aceh 64”and as a reaction to this ultra-repressive measure of the Indonesian state, 30 punks and anarchist activists attacked and vandalized the outside walls of the “Indonesian Consulate General” located at “Seneryildizi Sokak, No. 22/11 Etiler” in Istanbul, Turkey.

While playing punkrock music with a portable sound system, those 30 activists spray-painted the consulate with slogans saying: ”Dinleriyik Yoket (Abolish all Religions)“, “Free Aceh Punx”, “ACAB”, “Punklar burda (The Punks are Here)” and “Özgur Kal (Stay Free)”. The doors were covered with stickers and graffiti and two large banners were hung on the consulate walls saying: ”Free the Indonesian Punks” and “Bütün Devletler Fasittir, Polisler kiralik Katil (All governments are fascist, all cops are assassins)”. Afterwards a small but loud demonstration took place in the very rich and elitist vicinity of the consulate in support of the 64 Indonesian punks, expensive cars were decorated with anarchist symbols and some vandalism occurred until the 30 activists dispersed and vanished.

There was no interference with the police whatsoever and fortunately nobody was arrested.

Flyer that distributed during action:

In the region Aceh in Indonesia, 65 punks were put into police custody without any criminal charges.

They were arrested just for being different. The police shaved their hair off and removed their piercings and they will now be brainwashed through “religious education” and “military discipline”.

We strongly protest against this new fascist attempt to oppress and punish everybody who does not want to fit into their disgusting capitalist mainstream. State repression and police brutality is getting worse and worse every day worldwide and we are sick of it. We will fight back.

WE MIGHT BE FEW BUT WE STAND TOGETHER!

———————

What happened in Aceh?

After years of war and the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, a peace process was started which resulted in considerable autonomy for Indonesia’s northernmost province. Former GAM fighters won the elections. One of the changes they brought in was a form of Islamic Syaria’h law, which is not enforced in any other part of Indonesia. Currently Aceh is in the run-up to new elections and different candidates are pitching their image to the public.

In nearly all parts of Indonesia there is a large punk scene. Many young homeless kids are attracted by the music and the lifestyle and can support each other in many ways, forming a subcultural community. Indonesian punks often earn a living by busking on buses or at traffic lights, and travel the country for free, hitch-hiking on the back of trucks. But at concerts, which are usually free or cheap and organised according to DIY ethics, people from all backgrounds come along.

The concert on 10th December 2011 was a benefit gig to raise money for orphans. Apparently the event started at about 3pm and it was supposed to continue into the night. but at 21.30, police climbed onto the stage and demanded that the event should finish. The people there tried to negotiate for the gig to continue, but the cops didn’t seem to care. Reacting to the cops’ behaviour, the punks started singing a popular resistance song, Darah Juang (blood of struggle), but as it happened, that song seemed to provoke the anger of the cops who then started beating people and arresting them.

The arrested punks were taken to the Seulawah National Police School one hour from Banda Aceh city. That’s where their hair was shaved off and they were forced into the lake. Punks in Aceh who weren’t arrested have found it difficult to get any communication with their friends, because it seems they are in isolation.

Worldwide solidarity actions:

December 28, 2011
Iran Khodro to design D8 joint car

Iran Khodro Co. (IKCO) has announced that the Group of Eight Developing Countries (D8) has chosen the company to design the platform for their joint car.

The D8 industry ministers attended a summit in Istanbul from October 4-6, 2011 and appointed IKCO to design the D8 joint car with the cooperation of Turkey and Indonesia, read a statement released by IKCO on Sunday.

D8 members include Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

D8 members also agreed to promote research and development activities in the fields of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) technology, hybrid technology, plug-in cars, new materials and nano-technology.

“Improving the quality, level of technology and also the capacity if supply chain was another issue settled by the D8 vehicle working group,” the statement continued.

IKCO was founded in 1962 and is currently regarded as the biggest automaker in the Middle East.

The company won an award from Tehran’s Third International Nanotechnology Festival in 2010, as the leading company in nano-related auto industry.

HMV/HGH

via PressTV – Iran Khodro to design D8 joint car.

October 17, 2011
Istanbul Bus Rapid Transit Attracts Jakarta

BERITAJAKARTA.COM — 7/8/2011 8:15:11 PM

Jakarta capital city government is about to cooperate with Istanbul government, Turkey related to bus rapid transit (BRT) development in order to complete city transportation system. As planned before, control system and traffic management will be discussed during a meeting.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said Istanbul has already succeed implementing low cost-effective traffic management control system. It is hoped similar system can be applied here.

“Istanbul installed many cameras and monitored with self-development software. We`ll review the system further to be applied here,” he said at City Hall, Friday (7/8).

Bowo realized Jakarta has different traffic condition with Istanbul. BRT in Istanbul has been organized well and able to connect both European and Asian Istanbul. It also carries huge number of passengers by using articulated buses.

“They have less traffic jam since separators are fenced. The system is using multiple articulated bus and able to go with high speed,” he added.

According to him, society discipline must be improved before applying the system in Jakarta.

“We have to improve society discipline to avoid them using special bus lane such as Transjakarta bus lane,” he expressed.

Translator: adi

via BeritaJakarta.com.

July 9, 2011
Turkey may develop fighter aircraft with S Korea, Indonesia

Turkey may develop fighter aircraft with S Korea, Indonesia

ÜMİT ENGİNSOY

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

Keen to bolster the capabilities of its Air Force, Turkey is interested in developing a new fighter aircraft with South Korea and Indonesia, senior Turkish and South Korean officials have said.

“There have been some preliminary talks about our possible participation in the KF-X program,” a senior Turkish procurement official told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review over the weekend. “We are investigating the feasibility and possibilities of this program.”

Maj. Gen. Choi Cha-kyu, director general of South Korea’s aircraft program bureau at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, said in September that Ankara was seriously considering taking part in the KF-X program.

“There will be a requirement [in Turkey] to replace the older fighters with newer ones by 2020,” the daily Korea Times quoted Choi as saying at the time. “Once on board, Turkey is expected to bear the same amount of development costs as Indonesia.”

The KF-X is a mainly South Korean program to develop an advanced multi-role fighter for the Air Forces of South Korea and Indonesia. It originally was launched in 2001, but then postponed because of financial and technological difficulties. The program will start again next year with the consent of budget authorities.

South Korea will provide 60 percent of the KF-X development costs worth some $4.2 billion, with the rest to come from other governments or corporate partners. About 120 KF-Xs would be built initially and more than 130 aircraft would be produced additionally after the first-phase models reach operational capability.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed in mid-July, Indonesia agreed to pay 20 percent of the bill and to buy about 50 KF-X planes when mass production begins.

South Korea also is seeking to receive technology transfers from Western aerospace firms. One possible corporate partner is Sweden’s Saab.

Other options

Turkey already has selected the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II as its next-generation fighter aircraft type. It plans to buy about 100 F-35 aircraft worth nearly $15 billion. Many Turkish companies are members of the nine-nation Joint Strike Fighter consortium of nine Western nations, and are producing parts for the aircraft.

Lockheed Martin, the U.S. company leading the Joint Strike Fighter program, wants Turkey to increase the number of F-35 planes it plans to buy to 120 from 100. Turkey also will receive 30 F-16 Block 50 fighters from Lockheed as a stop-gap solution until F-35 deliveries begin around 2015.

But Turkish officials have said they are open to participating in one more future international fighter aircraft program.

Turkey also is facing pressure from Italy, a close defense partner, to buy the Eurofighter Typhoon, made by a European consortium including companies from Italy, Britain, Germany and Spain.

Giovanni Bertolone, executive vice president for operations at Finmeccanica, a top Italian industrial conglomerate, in early December called on Turkey to jointly produce the next phase of the Eurofighter. Finmeccanica is the parent company of Alenia Aeronautica, one of the makers of the Eurofighter.

Bertolone said the F-35 and the Eurofighter had different functions, and that Turkey could accommodate both fighters. The Eurofighter has been designed mainly as an air-to-air fighter while the F-35 is more suitable for air-to-ground missions.

In the event Turkey decides to buy the Eurofighter, these aircraft would replace the older U.S.-made F-4E Phantoms, recently modernized by Israel.

“We’re encouraging Turkey to follow the examples of Britain and Italy, which will have both aircraft,” Bertolone said. “Air-to-air fight capability is important, and we think this situation will gain prominence.”

Many analysts believe that the planned South Korean-led KF-X also would be suitable for air-to-air fighting.

December 14, 2010
Urumqi: a Quiet “Open Prison”

2009-07-10

A man contacted by RFA in Urumqi tells about his fears while the official Chinese media strive to portray a city under control and life back to normal.

RFA

Chinese People’s Armed Police in front of the Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, on July 9.

Official Chinese media are describing the city of Urumqi as “quiet” following several days of ethnic violence between Muslim Uyghurs and the majority Han Chinese.

“Major streets in Urumqi seemed peaceful Friday,” said the official Xinhua news agency.

“Life back to normal in Urumqi,” said a caption over a Xinhua picture showing residents buying vegetables in a market.

But Uyghurs, who say their grievances are routinely ignored and suppressed as “separatism” by Beijing, describe the atmosphere as anything but normal.

One man in Urumqi, reached by telephone by RFA, said that for its Uyghur minority, Urumqi was “an open prison.”

Xinhua did acknowledge that “security remained tight” and that “some mosques were shut on Friday “for security reasons.”

By RFA’s count, only two mosques were open in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) with a population of 2.3 million people.

White mosque opened

On Friday, Uyghur men demanded that they be admitted to the White Mosque near the neighborhood where some of the worst violence occurred following Uyghur protests, a police crackdown, and ethnic clashes that left at least 184 dead, according to an official Xinhua report.

A New China News agency (Xinhua) picture showing “Urumqi residents buying vegetables at a market,” as proof that normalcy has returned to the regional capital on July 10.

The police decided to open the mosque, apparently in order to avoid yet another clash.

According to the Associated Press, a group of 10 policemen blocked a small demonstration not far from the White Mosque.

About 40 Uyghur men and women “began to march, shouting, crying and pumping their fists in the air as they walked.”

“The Uyghur people are afraid,” said Madina Ahtam, a woman in a multicolored headscarf, who spoke English. “Do you understand? We are afraid. … The problem? Police.”

Police “pushed journalists away from the area and detained at least four foreign journalists, holding them for several hours.”

Death toll

China on Saturday issued its latest casualty figures – 137 ethnic Han Chinese and 46 Uyghurs. A man of Hui nationality was also reported to have been killed.

Many Uyghurs believe that this understates the Uyghur death toll.

In an interview on Friday with AP Television, Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uyghur leader, said that China’s casualty toll for the unrest has greatly understated the number of Uyghur killed.

The man contacted by RFA said that Uyghurs were currently unable to move freely around the city.

The man’s name is not disclosed in order to protect him from retaliation.

“We cannot go out freely,” he said. “Whenever they see some Uyghur people gathering up, they are forcing them to go inside.”

“Fully armed police are marching around in the street, in front of our doors. Just below my house, there are police officers, and they can break in and take me away at any time.”

This man seemed to express a kind desperation displayed by many in the city.

“The heart of the Uyghur people in our land is broken,” he said. “We can only ask God for help. No one is here to protect us.”

Foreign reactions

Overseas, The Organization of the Islamic (OIC) condemned the “disproportionate” use of force in Xinjiang, according to Agence France-Presse.

The OIC called on China to carry out an “honest” investigation into the clashes and find those responsible for the killings.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that the issue should be taken to the United Nations’ Security Council.

The head of Indonesia’s largest Muslim political party, the Prosperous Justice Party, called for the U.N. and Western countries to put pressure on China to stop the “slaughter” of Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Original reporting in Uyghur by Erkin. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamber. Written for the Web by Dan Southerland.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/eyewitness-07102009094007.html

July 11, 2009
Islam and democracy can – and do – coexist

Just look at successes in Indonesia and Turkey.

By John Hughes

from the May 8, 2009 edition

Provo, Utah – Over the years American presidents have preached the power of freedom to the un-free nations of the world.

In recent times, the focus has been on the Arab world, where democratic progress has been scant. President George W. Bush’s efforts – from candid speeches to Arab leaders to a costly war in Iraq – have yielded mixed results.

President Obama is pursuing a different course, using a blend of personal charm abroad and efforts at home to burnish America’s image as a democratic example.

Throughout all this, skeptics have argued that this is a lost cause, and that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

So it is heartening to see the integration of democracy and Islam taking place in three huge countries whose Muslim populations make up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the world’s entire Muslim populace.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population (205 million), is undergoing national elections that will strengthen its steady democratic progress. India, which has a minority population of some 150 million Muslims, is finishing up month-long elections for a nation of more than 1 billion people. Turkey, with a Muslim population of 77 million, is a working example of a secular democracy in a Muslim country.

These examples may not offer a blueprint for the mostly undemocratic Arab world. But their success does offer welcome evidence that Islam and democracy can coexist, maybe even integrate.

Indonesia’s emergence as a peaceful democracy is notable because its past has not always been free of violence or manipulation. When I worked as a correspondent in Indonesia in the 1960s, the Army put down a communist-triggered coup and wrought terrible vengeance across the Indonesian archipelago.

Estimates of the death toll rose as high as 1 million people. My own estimate was about 200,000. An investigating commission reporting to President Sukarno listed 78,000 people dead – a dreadfully inaccurate figure that was offered up, a source told me, because “We gave Sukarno the figures we thought he wanted to hear.”

Indonesia’s travail continued under the man who deposed him, General Suharto. Yet today, Indonesia has become a country of order and promise.

India is currently conducting its 15th national election since achieving independence in 1947. Indians proudly proclaim the process to be the “world’s biggest exercise in democracy.” Though India is predominantly Hindu, the Muslims who live there tend not to vote as a religious bloc, but spread their votes across a multiplicity of parties with differing policies.

Months ago, Mr. Obama said he wanted to make a major address in an Islamic capital early in his presidency. He hasn’t done that yet, but it is no surprise that he chose Turkey for his “the US is not at war with Islam” speech. Turkey has proved, as Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, once said, “that you can have a democracy in a Muslim-majority country.” In free elections, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has successfully maintained Turkey as a secular, free-market society since 2003.

There have been spats between Turkey and the US. Turkey barred US forces from using its territory as a launching pad for the war against Saddam Hussein. Its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been a blistering critic of Israel over Gaza. But Obama’s visit was well received, and the US considers Turkey a useful potential interlocutor in the various challenges of the Middle East – a role that Turkey appears ready to assume.

Though Indonesia, India, and Turkey, each in their different ways, present welcome examples of compatibility between Islam and democracy, it is often democracy molded to accommodate local cultures and customs. It is freedom, but not necessarily democracy as defined in Washington or the capitals of western Europe.

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for his coverage of Indonesia. He writes a biweekly column for the Monitor Weekly.

Source: www.csmonitor.com, May 8, 2009

May 10, 2009