Release Food Justice Activists In Jakarta! (Bebaskan Kedaulatan Pangan Aktivis-aktivis Di Jakarta!)

IPMSDL calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the eight (8) Indonesian food justice activists who protested against the UN Food Systems Summit in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta today. They are currently being detained at the Central Jakarta Police Station.

“On the day of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, a faux people’s summit dominated by billionaires and big businesses, the arrest of Indonesian activists only expose how governments and big corporations serve the hungry and marginalized sector who are demanding for a just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food systems,” IPMSDL Global Coordinator Beverly Longid says.

Those arrested this afternoon were conducting a peaceful assembly as part of the Global People’s Summit on Food Systems Global Day of Action to End the Global Corporate Food Empire.

Among those arrested is Kurniawan Sabar, Executive Director of INDIES, member of ILPS Indonesia and steering council member of People’s Coalition of Food Sovereignty-Asia. INDIES and ILPS Indonesia are active networks of IPMSDL working for the rights of masyarakat adat, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized sectors in Indonesia.

“These repressive actions only push us — the rural communities, Indigenous Peoples, poor peasants, farmers and fisherfolks — to unite in the Global People’s Summit on Food Systems actions and activities and amplify our calls for food sovereignty. Today, we declare that we resist corporate capture and reclaim our right to food, our right to land, and our right for a future free from corporate and imperialist control,” Longid added.

Sabar was with around 30 activists, including members of the Indonesian People’s Conference, peasants, workers, women, youth, students, migrant workers, human rights defenders, and environmentalists, in demanding for genuine land reform, effective pandemic response, poverty and underdevelopment from the Indonesian government.

We are calling on our members and networks in the international community, and advocates for IP rights and food sovereignty to join us and amplify our calls to immediately release these food justice activists.

#Hungry4Change #OurFoodSystems

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