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As the country celebrated Independence Day on Monday, a watchdog said that more needed to be done to protect the nation’s human rights defenders.

“Human rights defenders experience many kinds of repression,” Ifdhal Kasim, head of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said on Monday.

“The limited protection of human rights defenders is bad,” he said. “The government has little concern about protecting human rights defenders. This low level of protection makes them prone to harassment, intimidation, attack and other kind of abuse.”

A report by human rights group Imparsial showed that between 2005 and 2009 the condition of human rights defenders has been worsening. There were 46 torture cases reported, 29 cases of defenders being arrested with no clear reason and 25 cases of intimidation, threats and terror.

According to the report, university students, farmers, journalists and activists from non-governmental organizations have been affected.

Poengky Indarty from Imparsial said that the government needs to make a more serious effort to protect human rights defenders.

“In the euphoria of Indonesia’s freedom day, we need to question the government’s responsibility to protect the freedom of of human rights defenders,” she said.

Ifdhal said that people often misunderstood who could be classed as a human rights defender.

“Journalists, teachers, labor union members and farmers could also be categorized as human rights defenders,” he said. “Farmers who try to defend their own rights over their ownership of their land could also be dubbed as human rights defenders. In many cases that we found, when they were trying to protect their rights, police arrested them.”

Ifdhal also said that many violations had recently occurred against those working in the religious field.

“People in religious institutions that voice pluralism and religious freedom are often being attacked,” he said.

“The government can develop a complaint mechanism,” Ifdal said. “Rather than police involvement in cases, those who feel uneasy could file complaints to an arbitrary institution.”

“The government should also annul the law that criminalizes human rights defenders' efforts,” he said.