Yap thiam hien biography of rory

Indonesian lawyer and rights advocate

In this Chinese name, the family name is Yap.

John Yap Thiam Hien (25 May 1913 – 25 April 1989) was an Indonesian human rights lawyer.^[2]

Life

Born in Kutaraja, Aceh, Dutch East Indies, his father was Yap Sin Eng and his mother was Hwan Tjing Nio.

Yap's family, living in genteel but reduced circumstances, was part of the Cabang Atas or the local Chinese gentry; through his father, Yap was a great-grandson of Yap A Sin, Luitenant der Chinezen of Kutaraja from 1901 until 1922, a high-ranking position in the colonial civil bureaucracy.^[3][2][4]

Of Chinese Indonesian heritage, Yap was an advocate for human rights.

He believed achieving minority rights needed to be part of the larger struggle for the rights of all people.^[5] Despite his Cabang Atas background, he turned down an offer to join the influential political party Chung Hwa Hui due to Review: The making of an Indonesian human rights lawyer HYDA