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Woodside political activist disappears in Indonesia

By Peter Sorkin

Friends and supporters of an Indonesian activist from Woodside on a mission to bring attention to human rights abuses in his native country, fear he may have been kidnapped.

Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, 35, who founded the International Forum for Aceh in 1998, returned to Indonesia two weeks ago on a monthlong mission to document and highlight human rights abuses by police and the military. He had also hoped to establish a newspaper on the island of Sumatra, where his hometown of Aceh is located, said Robert Jeresky, executive director of the International Forum on Aceh.

Aceh has an abundance of natural resources like oil. Indonesia, Asia