Human Rights and Regions of Memory: The Case of the International People’s Tribunal on Crimes Against Humanity in Indonesia 1965

Abstract

In late 2015, Indonesian human rights activists staged an International People’s Tribunal to hear the case of crimes against humanity, including mass murder and imprisonment without trial, committed fifty years prior in the 1965 Indonesian genocide against the political left. The tribunal was a mock tribunal and not legally binding. Its main purpose was to increase pressure on the Indonesian government to address this case after eighteen years of failed initiatives. Activists chose the Hague in the Netherlands as the location for the tribunal because holding the tribunal in Indonesia would have been too dangerous due to ongoing threats and intimidation against activists who have taken up thi..