Aceh Police Sexually Assaulted Gay NGO Workers - AHRW

The Grinch has no way of confirming the details of this case though it was brought to his attention about six weeks ago. Asian HRW (who produced the story below on their website) is a reputable organization that doesn't make specious accusations.
These allegations emerge four months into a three-year, multi-million dollar police training program in Aceh designed to improve police awareness of human rights and community policing among the province's 11,000 police officers.
The same week the training program was launched, a group of uniformed police beat to death - outside the offices of the chief of police in downtown Banda Aceh - a young secuity guard who mistakenly flew the Indonesian flag upside-down outside a government building.

BANDA ACEH, March 17, 2007 – A 32-years-old NGO worker and his same-sex partner were allegedly brutally tortured and sexually abused by the Banda Aceh police while in custody in January, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has revealed.
AHRC has named the NGO official as Mr. Hartayo and his partner as “Bobby”.
The alleged underlying motive behind the detention, torture and sexual abuse of the victims is because they are homosexuals, AHRC says in an ‘urgent action’ appeal.
“We were also informed that the police made the victims to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again,” the appeal says.
“The AHRC is deeply concerned that such brutal violence against the victims was committed without hesitation not only by the civilian attackers but also by the police whose mandate is to protect the rights of people.”
On January 22 at around 11:30pm, the victim, Mr. Hartayo, a 32 year-old NGO worker in the Aceh province, was at home with his partner, Bobby, when two men, one of whom the victims identified as an employee of the local Pesona cafe below his boarding house, kicked down his front door and barged into his home, and proceeded to vandalize the property before assaulting both Mr. Hartayo and his partner.
Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then forced out of their home and ordered to go outside by their attackers, where a crowd of some 15 people had gathered. The beatings and verbal abuse continued. Mr. Hartayo specifically recalled the words of one of his attackers: “You outsiders slander us; you soil our place with your filthy tricks.”
Mr. Hartayo was then ordered to immediately vacate the boarding house, and was marched back to his room to pack his belongings. His ID card and wallet were taken from him, and he was then made to squat on the ground with his partner, while his attackers deliberated on what to do next. They eventually decided to inform the local police authorities.
Four police officers arrived at the scene about 1.30am in an official police vehicle. Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then taken to the Banda Raya police station.
There, both men were allegedly made to strip down to their underwear, and were then viciously beaten and verbally abused by the officers.
In his testimony, Mr. Hartayo alleges that the officers sexually abused him and then forced his partner to perform oral sex on him. Mr. Hartayo started weeping and attempted to push his partner away, only to be kicked and scolded by the officers who took some perverse “enjoyment” out of their humiliation.
The victims were then dragged to the police station courtyard where they were made to squat on the ground in their underwear. Officers then sprayed them with ice-cold water from the courtyard hosepipe. At this point, Bobby asked the officers for permission to go to the toilet. The officers refused, and instead forced him to urinate on Mr. Hartayo's head.
Mr. Hartayo and his partner were then taken to a police cell, where they were detained until the morning. Mr. Hartayo requested several times to contact his family to inform them of what had happened, a basic human right when facing criminal detention. Each time, his request was denied.
While in the police cell, Mr. Hartayo was instructed by the officers to introduce himself to the detainee who already occupied the cell. When Mr. Hartayo innocently stated that he was a homosexual, an officer entered the cell and severely beat him.
According to Mr. Hartayo, he was treated with complete contempt by all the officers he encountered during his detention.
At around 9:00am on January 23, Mr. Hartayo was finally allowed to speak to his fellow NGO co-workers, although for not longer than five minutes. Both Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were asked by representatives from the Aceh NGO Coalition whether they wanted to file a formal complaint.
Physically and mentally exhausted, both men decided not to pursue the case, and were then made to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again.
“I felt that my dignity as a human being had been trampled,” Mr. Hartayo told the Aceh NGO Coalition.

Another One Bites The Dust

The Grinch's 42nd birthday winked by over the weekend, conveniently and perpetually stapled onto the St. Patrick’s Day excesses so no one can claim I’m grandstanding when I call up asking about their plans for the 17th.
Managed to lasso several people into meeting for commemorative post-magrib Irish Coffees at the Waterfall Bar in the Hyatt in central Jakarta. Commemorative in as much as St. Pats will always be the object of deliberate situational irony: I converted to Islam on the same date in 2004 – it is illegal to perform inter-religious weddings in Indonesia – and made a bee-line from the mosque to the Hyatt (2005 photo above) to mark the holiday. As I’ve been bottled up in Aceh the past two years it seemed appropriate to mark the first post-tsunami Jakarta anniversary of – as one close family member described it “my apostasy” – in similarly irreverent fashion.
Later we retired to the salubrious confines of a dime-a-dozen “Irish” pub in a second Western hotel for multiple refreshing Guinni and fish n chips, where I won a draw for a Rupiah 150,000 (Can $20) voucher to yet another hotel bar – famed for the youth and relative health of its female patrons (known locally as ‘ayam’ or ‘chicken’) – which is sufficient funds to get a fine glow-on.
I had one of “those” conversations about aging with some hanger-on though predictably the perspectives are quite different on account of this Grinch’s legendary constitution, anticipated late punch-out date and numerous inebriated promises not to die before people several decades his junior.
I believe we broke much new ground, concluding among other things that:
1. Youth is wasted on the young.
2. The worst performance of Led Zeppelin’s career still totally kicks the ass of any rock band currently in existence.
3. The female of the species only truly starts to bloom at 40. (Editors Note: Article 4 revised up from 35, 30, 25, 20 and 18 over past two and a half decades. See Grinch Archives).
4. Drivers licenses should only be issued to people over 30 (with exceptions made for under-30s driving agricultural vehicles providing they are restricted to tertiary roads and farms.)
5. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 40 with a barbed wire tattoo who has not served time in a federal penitentiary should be immediately incarcerated.
6. Brittany Spears and her ilk are a bad influence.
7. Life becomes more valuable as you get older because young people are stupid.
8. Its hard to understand why yoots don’t ask their parents for advice about things like sex, alcohol and peer-pressure. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that they were in the same position, right?
9. Is it just me or is the music in here too loud?
10. Larry King’s interviews with Red Buttons and Angie Dickenson really crackle.

Last Rites

It has been a crappy week.
We went over to Liz’s place last Wednesday to find husband Wayne grey and wounded. A decent, decent fellow with a nine-month-old daughter suddenly widowed in the most tragic and public of circumstances.
Situation worsened by the fact that until Sunday there was no official confirmation of the identities of several of the most damaged remains which had been subjected to two hours in an aviation-fueled inferno. Then there’s the unasked question hovering about the periphery about whether our friends suffered, whether they were still conscious, pinned into their business-class seats by the force of the impact as the fire tore through the aircraft.
My understanding is that several survivors indicated the foreigners in the front of the plane was critically injured and likely not aware of the evacuation going on behind their heads. A small blessing.
We brought Wayne a few memories and laughs. Recalled how hard it was for Liz to lay off the wine at the New Years 2005 dinner (the photo above) we had together just weeks after learning she was pregnant; Liz sounding off at (cowering) Indonesian police for kicking ABC Australia’s satellite rig in the minutes after the Embassy 2003 bombing; Liz telling Wayne how she planned to attend an embassy planning meeting at “not say a thing”, a pledge she was incapable of keeping under any circumstances.
Knee-high Lucy is the spitting image of her mother, bold, anxious to walk unaided, unafraid of adults; a zero-maintenance baby that provide itself hours of amusement. By the weekend visitors detected a shift. She is searching women’s faces, squirmy and crying long and loud for no apparent reason.
Sunday there was a drinks memorial for Australian Financial Review correspondent Morgan Mellish at the unofficial Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) press club, the same Indo-Thai restaurant where I proposed to Jihan etc. The last time I saw him was at the bar’s 10th anniversary two weeks earlier, one of the best nights out we’ve had in a long time. Mohitos and ales flowing, plenty food and good music. All in the best of humor, unnatural couplings (and subsequent horror!) the order of the night; table dancing, the staff fully part of the celebrations. Think we poured ourselves through the gate at 430 a.m.
The memorial was pretty laid back event, not nearly as maudlin as these things can be. Several journo friends have flown in from Australia, Singapore and elsewhere to cover the story. There is sense of community that one only ever feels at these all-too-frequent events, the commemoration of an untimely and unexpected death. Quite a number of embassy staff also attended so for a brief while the walls were down.
Morgan’s mum Dawn and sister Caroline were there. The family set up a blog for the occasion (http://www.morganmellish.blogspot.com) that contains dozens of photos of Morgan that really tell you a story.
A clear-eyed Dawn told me she felt that his time had come. There were at least three opportunities for Morgan to avoid being on the doomed plane, she said. I understand he got a ticket from Liz on Flight GA-200 at the very last minute, neglecting to mention to his traveling companion on another airline that they wouldn’t be flying together.
She said her son dreamed of three things: working for the AFR, working as a foreign correspondent, and winning a Walkley Award (Australian journalism gong) all of which he’d accomplished. I don’t know what her demeanor was like when alone, but she struck me as a most extraordinary woman.
Liz, Morgan ad the bodies of three other Australians who died in the crash were flown out of Yogyakarta aboard an Australian Air Force C-130 yesterday, for a ceremony Wednesday in Canberra.

Untimely Deaths in the Heart of Java

We received confirmation in the past few minutes that two Australian friends are among those killed in this morning's Garuda plane crash in Yogyakarta.
Australian embassy public affairs officer Liz O'Neill (above, 31/12/05) was a new mum, wife to Wayne and a regular at various expat social & sporting events. We spent New Years 2005 with the pair of them and friends Tim and Sian. Liz organized the first media v Embassy staff tennis tourney a couple of years back and J and I were sitting in her backyard drinking wine back in Dec 2004 when we learned that our closest friends here has given birth to a baby boy (now my Godson). She was chatty, opinionated Australian patriot.
Morgan Mellish was the Australian Financial Review correspondent who replaced our good friend Andrew Burell last year. Although I can't say I knew him very well, we spoke professionally on a number of occasions when he was looking for information about Aceh, and chatted over beers a couple of times here in Jakarta.
I understand they were sitting together in business class when the plane landed in Yogya, bursting into flames. Passengers fleeing the aircraft – which was completely destroyed by the fire – said they were critically injured and unconscious before the catastrophic fire broke out.
There are still several unidentified bodies in the morgue at Yogyakarta's main hospital. We believe several of them are diplomats and Australian federal police who like Liz and Morgan, had traveled to Central Java to follow Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's trip to the area.
The final death toll remains unclear, somewhere between 22 and 49 of the 140 passengers and crew are reported to have died. We recognize a number of Indonesians who survived but will wait for the final names to be released before allowing ourselves to exhale.