Families of Tangerang Class I Prison Victims Visited Komnas HAM, Companion Explains 7 Findings

Friday, October 29th, 2021 01:32 WIB

Tribunnews.com Reporter's Report, Gita Irawan

TRIBUNNEWS.COM, JAKARTA – Families of victims from the Tangerang Class I Prison Fire has visited the office of (Komnas HAM) Indonesia in Central Jakarta on Thursday (28/10/2021).

Accompanied by the Advocacy Team from LBH Masyarakat, Imparsial, LBH Jakarta, and LPBH NU Tangerang, they complained about their fate.

LBH Society public lawyer Ma'ruf Bajammal who accompanied them revealed seven findings of alleged human rights violations committed by the government to the victims.

Ma'ruf explained that the advocate team previously opened a complaint post after the unfortunate incident last September.

From the post, he said, there were 9 complaints that came in.

Seven of them, he said, gave the power to ask for legal assistance.

The first finding, said Ma'ruf, was the lack of clarity in the process of identifying the bodies of the deceased.

He said there were no documents showing their family base was identified.

"They don't even know what the shape of the family is, so is it true that the coffin that was buried was his family or not," said Ma'ruf during a press conference at the (Komnas HAM) office broadcast on the Indonesian Humas (Komnas HAM) Youtube channel on Thursday (28/10/2021).

Second, he said, there was no transparency in the delivery of the bodies of the dead.

He said, when the victim's family wanted to see for the last time the body of his family, they were instead given the suggestion not to see the victim.

“However, the victim's family still wants to be able to see their family member for the last time. But they still can't," he said.

Third, there is the inadequacy of the victim's coffin.

Based on the statement of the victim's family, the family's body was put in a coffin made of only plywood.

On the coffins, he said, the names of each victim were written and pasted on paper.

“In their opinion, this is very unfit to be used as a crate because it is only made of plywood, which is then painted white. There was even one of the victims' families who bought their own coffin so that their family could be placed in a proper coffin," he said.

Fourth, there are indications of intimidation when signing administrative documents and taking the bodies of victims.

The condition of the place where the signing was cramped and crowded with many people, he said, made the victims' families rush and did not know what documents they signed even though there were families who had time to take photos of the documents.

"On that basis, we saw an attempt at intimidation during the signing process for the handover of the bodies," he said.

Fifth, he said, there was an effort to silence the victim's family so that the victim's family would not sue any party for the Tangerang Penentiary fire incident.

A clause stating that the victim's family does not sue the Tangerang pentiary. or any party to the fire incident will only be known after the document is signed.

That's also based on a photo taken by one of the victim's family.

Sixth, he said, there was no continuous psychological assistance to the victim's family after the handover of the victim's body.

In fact, he said, there are families of victims who are traumatized by the incident.

"There are families of victims who even hear the word 'burn' or see things that are 'burnt' or for example seeing food that we know that one type is burnt is not even strong," he said.

Seventh, the government's giving of Rp30 million did not help the victim's family at all.

Instead of being a form of love or aid money, he said, the money was only used up for consolation or prayers for the victim's family.

“Even as a comparison, if we look at the victims of traffic accidents, the compensation given is even up to 50 million IDR. Here, on average, those who give their power of attorney to us get 30 million IDR," he said.

Of the seven things he said four basic problems that occurred in the incident.

First, the non-disclosure of information at the time of the victim handover.

Second, there is the impossibility of returning the bodies to the deceased.

Third, there is an abuse of circumstances which then has an impact on the human rights of the victim's family.

Fourth, the absence of compensation to the victim's family as a form of government responsibility for the fire incident.

Therefore, he said, at least there are allegations of human rights violations related to this incident.

"Based on this, we submitted a complaint to (Komnas HAM) for further action," he said.