LGBTIQ Forum and IPT 65 receive Suardi Tasrif Award

Source : The Jakarta Post, August 26 2016

The jury for the Suardi Tasrif Award for freedom of expression on Friday night bestowed the prize on two groups that have fought stigma and the legacy of a dark past.

They had been “courageously voicing violence and discrimination against them to uphold freedom of opinion and expression in Indonesia”, it said.

The jurors — Press Council member and Jakarta Post Digital chief editor Nezar Patria; Ignatius Haryanto from the Press and Development Study Institute (LSPP); and Luviana, journalist and Suardi Tasrif Award laureate in 2013 — gave the award to the LGBTIQ Forum and the International People’s Tribunal 1965 (IPT 65) group.

The forum for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ) individuals consists of more than 20 organizations concerning the minority groups’ rights while the IPT 65 consists of victims of the 1965 communist purge, researchers, advocates, lawyers and organizations concerned with justice for victims.

“We hope the award for these two groups can lead to greater respect for the message they want to send to us, and also as an attempt toward national reconciliation. We hope this award will give both groups the spirit to continue their fight for equal rights and to get complete information of what happened in the past, and moreover for our growth as a sovereign and civilized nation like our founding fathers wanted,” the jury wrote.

The award is given annually by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), coinciding with its anniversary on Aug. 19. This year’s awards, granted on Aug. 26, marked the AJI’s 22nd anniversary.

Last year, the award was won by Joshua Oppenheimer and his codirector Anonymous, who made the Academy Award nominated documentaries on the 1965 mass killings The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence.

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