Jakarta – Suciwati, the wife of renowned human rights defender Munir Said Thalib who was assassinated in 2007, has protested the burial of the former mayor of Kota Batu, Eddy Rumpoko, in the Kota Batu Hero's Cemetery (TMP) in East Java.
She protested the burial because Rumpoko died when he still held the status of a corruption convict and was serving a prison sentence. According to Suciwati, corruptors should not be buried in a hero's cemetery.
"It's just that morals are becoming more depraved, how is it today that Eddy Rumpoko, a person who was clearly still in prison, he is corrupt, a corruptor, then he dies and is put in the TMP, the hero's cemetery. Is that appropriate?", said Suciwati during an online International Human Rights Day press conference held by Amnesty International Indonesia (AII) on Friday December 8.
Suciwati considers this phenomena to be a degradation of morals and gave the example of there still being many people who are proud as corruptors.
Moreover, Suciwati said that there are also parties that a proud of supporting human rights violators who are now contesting the 2024 elections.
"That's what I think, it's a lowering of the morals that we have", she said.
Rumpoko died on Thursday November 30 at around 5.30 am at the Doctor Kariyadi Hospital in Semarang, Central Java. When he died, Rumpoko was a prisoner at the Semarang Correctional Institution.
He was convicted over a gratification case valued at 46.8 billion rupiah and sentenced by a court to seven years in prison on May 19, 2022. Rumpoko was buried at the Suropati Hero's Cemetery in Kota Batu on November 30. (rzr/bmw)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Suciwati Munir Protes Ada Koruptor Dikubur di Taman Makam Pahlawan".]
