“I was run over, slashed with ‘celurit’s and beaten with mattocks. But by playing dead, with Allah’s help I managed to survive, I survived by pretending to be dead.” said Tosan, a resident of Selok Awar-Awar Village, Pasirian Subdistrict, Lumajang Regency, East Java, during the trial for the murder of Salim Kancil at the Surabaya District Court.

It turned out that not only Tosan was attacked. Around forty assailants later came for Salim Kancil, Tosan’s fellow villager. Salim Kancil, who was then carrying his grandchild, was tied and taken to the Selok Awar-Awar Village Hall, where he was tortured, electrocuted, and beaten with hard objects like stones — until he died.

The tragic event on December 26, 2015, happened because Tosan and Salim Kancil persistently opposed sand mining activities in their village. These mining operations destroyed rice fields and damaged the environment. Selok Awar-Awar, located at the foot of Mount Semeru, became one of many villages exploited for sand mining to support construction projects. The sand from this region is not only used locally but also exported abroad.

Tosan and Salim Kancil are environmental defenders — individuals who, voluntarily or professionally, dedicate their work to protecting the environment from overexploitation. Such exploitation takes many forms: mining, deforestation, reclamation, large-scale development, and other destructive activities.