He’d just arrived in Bali for his honeymoon when Indonesian police arrested the Peruvian Harvard Kennedy School of Government graduate student and transgender activist Rodrigo Ventocilla. Customs officials at the Denpasar airport had detained him for carrying “items containing cannabis” in his luggage. His husband, Sebastían Marallano, would arrive on a later flight and also be detained.
Five days later, Ventocilla, age, 32, died in policy custody. His family is looking for answers and Harvard is supporting them.
Reports the Boston Globe:
[Ventocilla] died in a hospital on Aug. 11, five days after he arrived in Bali and was taken into custody at the airport by authorities, who said he possessed items containing cannabis, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru.
A Bali police spokesman told Reuters that Ventocilla was taken to a hospital two days after his arrest because he felt ill from ingesting medication that police had not confiscated. Ventocilla died due to “failure of bodily functions,” the spokesman, Stefanus Satake Bayu Setianto, told the news agency.
Ventocilla and his spouse, Sebastian Marallano, who is also Peruvian, were visiting Bali for their honeymoon, his friends and family said in a statement shared last Tuesday on Instagram. Marallano, who had arrived on an earlier flight, was also detained after trying to help Ventocilla, the statement said.
The family said Ventocilla and Marallano were detained “in an act of racial discrimination and transphobia” and accused the police of being violent with the couple.
The family’s statement said Ventocilla was “accused of being a drug trafficker, for having medication linked to his mental health treatment, for which he had a prescription from healthcare professionals.” They further alleged that police did not allow Ventocilla access to lawyers, his family, or Marallano.
“It should be noted that the Indonesian police obstructed access to the hospital at all times to the lawyers hired by the family, as well as the Harvard students who came to their [aid],” the statement said. “The family was NEVER able to communicate or know of Rodrigo’s health status/diagnosis.”
Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, called the family’s description of Ventocilla’s detention “extremely disturbing” and voiced support for an investigation.
“The statement from Rodrigo’s family raises very serious questions that deserve clear and accurate answers,” Elmendorf said in a statement last week. “Harvard Kennedy School supports the family’s call for an immediate and thorough investigation and for public release of all relevant information, and the School stands with all of Rodrigo’s friends and colleagues and with the LGBTQ+ community.”
Read the complete Boston Globe story here.
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