"Environmentalists face greater risks amid development drive", 10 December 2018

Indonesia is an increasingly dangerous place for people defending the environment and their land, activists have claimed....

According to Protection International Indonesia data, about 80 percent of cases of human rights violations against activists and rights defenders from 2014 to 2018 involved environmentalists....

Activists have pinned the blame for this spike on the ongoing development drive, including in infrastructure, of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, saying that the President's development policies lack environmental and human rights perspectives.

...[The cases against activits include] four residents defending their lands...against the development of an international airport compound and six others in West Java also fighting for their land against another airport development. Six people from Mount Kendeng in Central Java who have been fighting against cement factories are also in the list....

Another recent example was the sentencing of Heri Budiawan...for...a protest against gold mining activities....

...[A] 52-year-old farmer named Salim, or Kancil, was beaten to death...after co-arranging a protest against invasive sand-mining in his village....

Protection International Indonesia director Damairia Pakpahan said..."They only pursue profits without caring about the environmental rights,"....

She argued that neither the government nor corporations followed universal human rights standards in development, as the nation had yet to draft a legal instrument to outline such standards.