FIVE years after her sister disappeared, Indonesian Ram Ram Elisabeth is still looking for closure.

Her older sister Ruth Sitepu who went missing five years ago is now at the centre of an inquiry by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).

“We pleaded with the Indonesian and Malaysian governments to help us.

“We want the case to be over and we want to know Ruth’s fate,” she said on a webinar talk on demanding state protection for Indonesians who have gone missing in Malaysia.  

Ruth and her husband Pastor Joshua Hilmy are suspected to be victims of enforced disappearance after they allegedly converted to Christianity and started proselytising to Muslims.

They had disappeared from their house in Petaling Jaya, Selangor in 2016 and have not been heard of since.

Ram Ram said she pleaded for help from the both Indonesian and Malaysian governments.

In 2018, two years after their disappearance, Ram Ram and her brother Iman Setiawan Sitepu lodged a missing persons’ report.

Ruth’s family comes from the fishing village of Nambiki in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

Indonesian civil society group KontraS (Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence) coordinator Syahar Banu said since 2017 they have been communicating with the authorities in her country.

“We sent a report to the national human rights institution of Indonesia in 2019. We also sent letters to other commissions but we have yet to get a reply.”

Indonesia Protection of Citizens and Legal Entities Overseas director Judha Nugraha said since they had received the report there is no evidence of enforced disappearance.

“We sought the assistance of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Malaysia in 2019 and 2020.

“We are also seeking the assistance of the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia. We want to cooperate with the Malaysian government on this case,” he said.

Meanwhile, Citizen Action Group On Enforced Disappearance (Caged) spokesman Rama Ramanathan alleged that police did not take the case seriously.

Rama said a student named Grace Thangamalar stayed with the couple before they disappeared but police only interviewed her three years after the couple went missing.

“This means that the police did not care at all about the reports of Joshua and Ruth’s disappearance.”

International human rights laws define enforced disappearance as when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organisation, or by a third party with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of a state or political organisation. – January 20, 2021.