Absence of laws lead to rights abuses
Absence of laws lead to rights abuses
JAKARTA (JP): Former state minister of human rights Hasballah
M. Saad on Monday blamed the absence of laws for rampant human
rights violations across the country.
"As a matter of fact, there have yet to be any powerful laws
to sentence human rights perpetrators," Hasballah told a
discussion on human rights held by the Kanisius Catholic senior
high school.
He quoted a statement by a government official over the death
tolls in Aceh, saying: "If 200 people died in Aceh, there are
still 200 hundred million others in Indonesia.
"Such a statement was a reflection of how trivial the state
official considered the value of human rights," Hasballah told
the discussion participants from 19 senior high schools in
Jakarta.
He said violations against human rights in Aceh were mostly
committed by the state security apparatus from the National
Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI).
"This is a reality that we are now facing. Since international
campaigns on human rights have been launched, violations seem to
occur at an even greater scale," he said, citing sexual abuse
inflicted upon an Acehnese woman by a security officer at his
home village in Pidie, North Aceh.
Hasballah, however, admitted that the empowerment of human
rights in political affairs has at least shown some improvement.
The former minister's statement was challenged by a student
participant, who cited Megawati Soekarnoputri's failure to be
elected as president despite her Indonesian Democratic Party for
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) winning the 1999 general election.
Hasballah said the presidential election was held by the
People's Consultative Assembly, which was not free from
manipulation.
"There was always an opportunity to engineer the presidential
election. Who knows?" he said.
Ita Nadia, of the National Commission on Violence Against
Women, who also addressed the discussion, said men's whistling at
a passing woman could be categorized as violating human rights.
"And if there is physical abuse done by men against woman, for
example, the groping of a woman's breast, it could be considered
as a serious violation," she said.
She cited an example of a human rights violation, experienced
by an Irian Jaya rights activist Mama Yosefa Alomang, last year's
co-recipient of the Yap Thiam Hien human rights award.
Ita said Mama Yosefa was placed in a wet cell full of human
feces because of her continuous resistance against mining
operations by U.S.-based mining firm PT. Freeport Indonesia in
Timika regency.
The discussion also featured the student participants' joint
statement on the country's human rights performance, read out by
Clark Raphael, a Kanisius student, on behalf of all the
participants.
Clark said human rights was considered a new issue among
Indonesian people.
"The majority of people have yet to understand the concept of
human rights due to the lack of laws on human rights," he said.
"We think that the protection of human rights means only
paying lip service, because it has never been practiced properly
in reality," he added.
He cited rampant cases of people taking the law into their own
hands.
He also said that people frequently do not realize that their
rights have been violated.
"Opening one's personal letter can be considered as a rights
violation," he said.
Clark added that the government must pay extra attention to
human rights in the sociocultural fields.
"There are many of the nation's children who have not been
able to enjoy an education since the monetary crisis," he said.
He called on the government to provide a bigger budget for the
education sector, in order to develop human resources through
educational qualifications. (01)