Word: munir
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...When Munir Said Thalib, Indonesia's most prominent human-rights campaigner, died during a Garuda Airlines flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam and was later found to have been poisoned with arsenic, his murder became a test of new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledge to run an open and accountable administration. Yudhoyono set up a 12-member commission consisting of human-rights activists, legal and justice department officials, and a police brigadier. Based on its early findings, police last week arrested a Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, on suspicion of involvement in the activist's death...
...Three hours into the second leg of the trip, a flight attendant awakened Hakim and asked for assistance with a sick passenger in economy class. It was Munir. "He told me he'd been to the restroom six times in half an hour," says Hakim. "His vomiting and diarrhea was acute. He seemed to be extremely restless and in severe pain." Hakim gave Munir stomach medicine, but it had no effect. At one point, Munir asked the flight attendant if he could lie down in the aisle next to the lavatories. She put him in a seat nearby, and Munir...
...weeks ago, the Netherlands Forensic Institute in Amsterdam concluded that Munir had been killed by a massive dose of arsenic. Its autopsy revealed more than 460 mg of undigested arsenic in Munir's stomach; a fatal dose, according to Dr. Mun'im Idris, a forensic expert at Jakarta's University of Indonesia/Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, is anything above 200 mg. Friends and family reject the idea that Munir might have committed suicide. According to Jakarta-based Tempo magazine, Munir sent an SMS to his wife Suciwati from Singapore's Changi Airport that read: "I really can't make this...
...Munir's colleagues and family members are now focusing on the first leg of the trip, from Jakarta to Singapore. Apparently Munir moved from economy to business class, but the circumstances are unclear. The Indonesian government was slow to investigate, but following a vigorous campaign by Suciwati, the police announced that they have assembled a list of people to question, including Garuda flight attendants. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met Munir's widow last week and, according to Suciwati, promised to name an investigative team. Garuda Indonesia commercial director Bachrul Hakim told Tempo: "We will be completely open to any investigation...
...Munir had been an activist since his law school days, concentrating on labor rights, a sensitive field during the rule of President Suharto. After Suharto's ouster in 1998, two NGOs?an Islamic student organization and the Association of Independent Journalists?set up Kontras, which stands for the Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence, and which examines alleged human-rights abuses during the Suharto era. Three years later, he co-founded Imparsial, a human-rights monitoring group. His highest profile campaign of late was lobbying against a bill for an expanded intelligence agency. Munir's fellow activists wonder...