Belgium honors Indonesian feminist writer Julia Suryakusuma

Belgium has conferred a royal honor on Indonesian feminist writer Julia Suryakusuma for her efforts to advance various human rights causes. During a ceremony held at the ambassadorial residence in Central Jakarta on Wednesday, Belgian Ambassador to Indonesia Stéphane de Loecker presented Julia the Order of the Crown on behalf of Belgium’s King Philippe. The ambassador said in his remarks that the award was a "highly regarded honorific distinction only rarely attributed to non-Belgian personalities of particular merit". “Your writing always has a unique flavor, mixing your broad experience and an acute sense of observation and analysis of political and social life over the years with a freedom of thinking that is becoming unusual in these times of gregarian behavior and simplified thinking, dictated by social media,” Loecker said during the ceremony, which was also streamed live.