Award-winning author Felix K. Nesi has said he will continue his fight against sexual abuse despite being recently named as a suspect in a vandalism case.
“I will continue fighting in the campaign against sexual abuse. We in East Nusa Tenggara are a little late in uncovering sexual abuse cases, but that's okay,” Felix, who won a literary award from the Jakarta Arts Council in 2018, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
On Friday night, Felix was temporarily detained by the Insana Police in North Central Timor regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), for allegedly vandalizing a parish clergy house.
Felix told the Post that he had used his motorcycle helmet to smash a window of the clergy house at the SMK Bitauni Catholic vocational school in a fit of rage on learning that the parish church had retained a priest whom he accused of “mistreating a woman”.
“When I heard [that the priest] who had just had a problem with a woman in another parish had been transferred to a junior high school full of women, I went to SMK Bitauni,” Felix recounted in a Facebook post.
“I met with [the school principal]. I told him, ‘Please, Father principal, move [that priest] away from here’,” he wrote.
Felix said that a couple of months later, he had checked in with the principal again and discovered that the priest, whom he called “Romo A”, was still at the school. He said he was overwhelmed with disappointment and damaged the school's property.
He told the Post that he had only learned about his suspect status from journalists.
North Central Timor Police chief Adj Sr. Com. Nelson Filipe Diaz Quintas said that police had questioned witnesses about the incident.
“Yes, [Felix] has been named as a suspect” [in the case],” Nelson confirmed with the Post. (nal)
