Acceptance speech: Mr Joesoef Isak Jeri Laber Int. Freedom to Publish Award

2004 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award

Acceptance speech: Mr Joesoef Isak
April, 2003


Friends and all my dear soul-mates,

Thank you for your expressions of congratulations.
      I am pleased to have received the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award, not because any recognition of my role, but because it contains an implicit recognition that there has filthy and dark pages in the recent history of our Republic. This award also gives recognition to the fact that there was always the will and those elements in society that were resisting repression and struggling to bring about freedom. For too long now the so-called free world has held up the military regime of general Suharto for praise as some kind of democracy.
     The struggle for democratic rights and human dignity is a long struggle, but we all know that arbitrary power never rules forever.
     The 2004 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award is also an award to Indonesia itself, to its youth and students, the little book shops and the housewives that dared to risk read and circulate books that had been banned by those in power.
      I must also state my gratitude for the spirit of international solidarity shown by friends and colleagues around the world, including by all those refugees scattered in exile outside their homeland.

Salam & terimakasih!

Joesoef Isak
Subowo bin Sukaris
HASTA MITRA Updated at: 11:05 AM