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Indonesia

Beautiful virgins: the hard road to becoming an Indonesian policewoman

Being pretty and having a good body are key recruitment attributes for policewomen in Indonesia, writes SHARYN GRAHAM DAVIES. Late in 2014, Al Jazeera ran a story entitled ‘Virginity tests on Indonesia police condemned: Rights group says female police required to strip and undergo “two-finger test” to prove virginity before recruitment.’ The story, based on […]

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The ‘shame’ of Indonesia’s widows and divorcees

Popular culture in Indonesia exposes divorced or widowed women to prejudice and stigmatisation, writes NICHOLAS HERRIMAN. One of the most popular and enduring images of femininity in Indonesia is the janda. The term refers to either a widow or a divorcee because, in the popular imagination, how she has become unmarried is not particularly relevant.

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Lessons of Tambora ignored—200 years on from the world’s greatest modern eruption

Amidst commemorations of the Gallipoli landing, writes ANTHONY REID,the anniversary of another, perhaps more significant disaster for humanity, slipped by largely unnoticed. Australia is spending many millions commemorating in April 2015 the centenary of one disaster. The Gallipoli landing symbolises for Australians one of the greatest man-made catastrophes. We have almost completely ignored the bicentenary

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Questions begin to stir on Indonesia’s death penalty policy

A select few Indonesian scholars, journalists and activists are urging a rethink of the country’s policy of the death penalty, writes ROSS TAPSELL. Since Indonesia’s transition to democracy began in 1998 journalists have been able to comment on and criticise government policies. But during time spent in Indonesia’s main newsrooms since January as part of

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Guilt and shame linger over Indonesia’s 1965–66 killings

Many Indonesians risked their lives to help fugitives from the anti-communist purges that marked the birth of the New Order regime—but, writes VANNESSA HEARMAN, their stories remain untold. In spite of the extensive violence against the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965–66, sections of the party’s leadership and activists, as well as its mass base,

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