Sympathizing with and supporting Bongku (58), a member of the Sakai customary community in Riau, over injustices that had befallen him, Auriga Nusantara filed an amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) brief at a hearing in the Bengkalis District Court. The amicus, which had been prepared by two staff members of the organization, was submitted and read out by Bongku’s legal counsel during the defence hearing.
On 3 November 2019, security guards from PT Arara Abadi, a Sinarmas Group subsidiary, had detained Bongku (58), a member of the Sakai customary community in Riau. Accusing him of cutting down acacia and eucalyptus, they had escorted him into police custody.
Four months later, the State Prosecutor in the Bengkalis District Court called for Bongku to be imprisoned for a year and fined IDR 500 million, charging him with violating Article 82 letter (c) of Law No. 18/2013 on Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction, which states: “Cutting down trees illegally in the forest estate … sentenced to a minimum of one year’s imprisonment … and a minimum fine of IDR 500 million …”
All Bongku was doing was planting sweet potato, a staple food, on half a hectare of Sakai ancestral land; land where the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had issued a license to PT Arara Abadi to convert forest to acacia and eucalyptus plantations without the consent of the Sakai customary community.
The forest destruction prevention and eradication law itself has already been opposed since the outset as it opens the door to injustices against communities living in and around forests. Furthermore, the boundaries of Indonesia’s forest estates have yet to be fully demarcated and finalized. With these concerns in mind, in 2014, Auriga Nusantara, still named Yayasan Silvagama at the time, together with the Nagari Guguk Malalo customary community, the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), WALHI, the Agrarian Renewal Consortium (KPA), Sawit Watch, and Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) applied to the Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the law.
Despite the defence and the amicus brief’s resolute basis in facts on the ground, on 18 May 2018, Bengkalis District Court judges sentenced Bongku to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of IDR 200 million, setting a terrible precedent for justice in the application of the forest destruction prevention and eradication law.