T

he Indonesian Islamic University'€™s Center for Human Rights Studies (Pusham UII) has said that the Yogyakarta police'€™s failure to reveal the murderer of journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin, pen name Udin, 18 years ago was due to internal structural constraints.

Udin was beaten by unidentified people on Aug. 13, 1996 at his home in Bantul, Yogyakarta and he died three days later in hospital without regaining consciousness.

'€œThe police have been reformed, but the esprit de corps is the difficult part [to change],'€ Pusham'€™s director Eko Riyadi said during remarks at the launch of a graphic novel about Udin'€™s murder case at the center'€™s office on Wednesday.

Eko said that based on various people'€™s reports, there were indications of alleged involvement by police and military personnel in the murder case.

He also said that Pusham UII believed Udin was murdered because of his news stories that strongly criticized the Bantul regency administration, which at that time was in his coverage area.

Eko also said the case could be categorized as a violation of human rights because the murder eliminated Udin'€™s right to express himself. The police in this case could be considered to have committed a violation by omission for letting the perpetrators or masterminds go free.

Many have expressed concern over the possibility that the case would be considered as having expired this year according to Article 78 of the Criminal Code.

'€œWe refuse to accept the case as having been expired because the police have never conducted an investigation into the case,'€ Eko said.

The police once named Dwi Sumaji, alias Iwik, as a suspect in the case but the Bantul District Court acquitted him because of a lack of evidence. Ever since then no new suspect has been named by the police.

The same refusal that the case should expire has come from a focus group discussion (FGD) on the subject organized jointly by Pusham UII, the Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Yogyakarta branch.

'€œWe agreed that since the case is a violation of human rights that it has no expiry date,'€ said participating law expert Puguh Wendrawan of Pusham UII.

The rights violation aspect of the case, according to Puguh, were that there was an effort to silence Udin as a citizen from expressing his thoughts through the news he wrote and the inability of the police as law enforcers to protect citizens.

Separately, AJI Yogyakarta chairman Hendrawan said the results of the FGD would be handed over to the Yogyakarta police with the hope that it would open the police'€™s minds regarding the case and thus move the force to resume the investigation.