Meila Nurul Fajriah
Meila Nurul FajriahHuman Rights Defender, YLBHI, IndonesiaMeila is a human rights defender from Indonesia. Working with YLBHI (Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation) as a public lawyer and advocacy staff. She is former vice director of LBH Yogyakarta, a small office of YLBHI in the province of Yogyakarta.She engages with campaign strategy and ensures that the campaign is in line with the advocacy. She also working on women's rights issues and one of them is on the issue of sexual harrashment. During this advocacy, she often got threatened by public and institutions especially when the perpetrator came from high profile society. She got reported to the police by the perpetrator of sexual harrasment for "defamation" issue and the case is still running right now.
Since Indonesia’s transition to democracy, the role of human rights defenders has been of particular importance. The country’s record of its treatment of human rights defenders has been floundering, including ongoing surveillance and harassment, restrictions on the freedom of expression and freedom of religion, gender- specific violations against woman HRDs, judicial harassment including criminal defamation suits, stigmatisation, arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, torture, forced disappearances and killings. Impunity in cases of murders of HRDs and grave human rights violations continue to thrive.
In various provinces of Indonesia, political movements call for independence and/or self-determination. In these areas, individuals carrying out peaceful activities in defence of human rights are particularly at risk as they are targeted by both the authorities and insurgent groups. Attacks targetting defenders in West Papua have escalated in recent times, and the lack of media access to the region impacts the work of HRDs. Papuan rights activists have been arbitrarily arrested for peaceful demonstrations. LGBTI rights defenders are also particularly at risk, amidst increased anti-LGBTI rhetoric and discrimination. They are also threatened by extremist Islamist groups.
