Background
Born in Kutaraja, Aceh, Dutch East Indies, his father was Yap Sin Engineer and his mother was Hwan Tjing Nio.
Born in Kutaraja, Aceh, Dutch East Indies, his father was Yap Sin Engineer and his mother was Hwan Tjing Nio.
Yap moved often when he was young in pursuit his studies. He obtained the Meester der Rechten degree from the Faculty of Law, Leiden University in the Netherlands in 1947. He returned to Indonesia and started his career as a lawyer in Jakarta.
He opened a law firm together with John Karwin in 1950, and later joined the firm of Lie Hwee Yoe.
He opened his own law firm in 1970. Since then, he has fought for human rights and for justice and equality for ethnic minorities and the poor.
Together with Adnan Buyung Nasution, Mochtar Lubis, P.K. Ojong, Victor Doctorate. Sibarani, Albert Hasibuan, Bambang Widjojanto, Johannes Cornelis Princen and other notable human rights activists and lawyers, Yap was one of the founders of Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia (YLBHI), formerly known as Lembaga Bantuan Hukum (LBH), which was a legal aid society to help the poor. After the 1965 fall of the Soekarno regime, BAPERKI was accused of having links with the PKI and was banned by the new Suharto regime.
While attending the International non-governmental organization Forum on Indonesian Development conference in Brussels, Yap suffered from internal bleeding and was treated at Saint Augustin Hospital for two days before he died on April 25, 1989.
The Yap Thiam Hien Award is a human rights award named after him to commemorate his steadfastness and commitment. The Yap Thiam Hien has been managed by the Human Rights Study Center Foundation (Yayasan Pusat Studi Hak Asasi Manusia or YAPUSHAM) since 1992.
He was one of the founding members of PERADIN (Persatuan Advokat Indonesia) and served as the leader. In order to fight discriminative action toward Indonesian Chinese, in 1954 Yap was an early member of BAPERKI Badan Permusjawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia, an organization originally dedicated to obtaining citizenship for ethnic Chinese.
He is married with 2 children