Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference and attacks. Ibu Ratna Sarumpaet, who claims to be a human rights activist and was even commissioned a few years ago by UNICEF to produce a play on the trafficking of women and girls, demonstrated yesterday that she has never read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is, in fact, a hypocrite. Ibu Ratna had no reservations whatsoever in making crude racist remarks against TIME journalist Ms. Yenni Kwok, disclosing where she used to live, and then, in a truly despicable act, circulating a private photo of Ms. Kwok and her young daughter which seemed to have been taken from Ms. Kwoks facebook account. Such acts must be condemned. I myself experienced something similar a few months back when a Malaysian ethno-nationalist circulated a photo of me and my late father on Twitter after I had written an article critiquing race-thinking in Malaysia, in an attempt to discredit and expose me as a mouthpiece for the opposition. Such actions are not only vulgar, they can be truly hurtful and leave one feeling deeply violated and vulnerable. They really must be taken seriously as acts of harassment and as violations of fundamental human rights. It was very encouraging to see the way Indonesian and Indonesia-loving netizens came together on Twitter last night (and continue to do so today) to defend Ms. Kwok, and the right of all of us to freedom of speech and respect for privacy and family life.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 08:15:45 +0000
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