Activists urge House to reject antiterrorism rules

Debbie A. Lubis and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Activists urged the House of Representatives on Tuesday to reject government regulations in lieu of laws on terrorism and instead amend the Criminal Code in a bid to provide a stronger legal basis to fight terrorism.

Speaking during a meeting with House Commission I on defense, foreign, and political affairs, the activists said the country did not need to apply the regulations because they were against democracy and prone to human rights abuses.

"The government is seeking a shortcut to fight terrorism by imposing the regulations. It will only last for a maximum six- month period. Actually, what we need is just to add or change some articles in the Criminal Code," Todung Mulya Lubis, a noted lawyer and human rights activist, told The Jakarta Post after the meeting.

Todung was accompanied by activists from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), and the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Democracy (Infid).

A week after the Bali blasts, which killed at least 191 people on Oct. 12, the government issued Government Regulation No. 1/2002 and No. 2/2002 on fighting terrorism.

The government will submit the regulations to the House for approval, as required by the Constitution. In addition, the government also plans to submit the Antiterrorism Bill to the House to replace the regulations.

Todung said the government should not waste its energy submitting the Antiterrorism Bill because it could cooperate with the House to ratify 12 international conventions on terrorism on land, sea and air.

He said the government could supplement the conventions by modifying or improving some articles in the Criminal Code to support the government's fight against terrorism.

Todung said the regulations and the Antiterrorism Bill would give the state license to conduct state terrorism to intimidate and terrorize its citizens.

Munir of Kontras said the regulations should be rejected because they allowed intelligence agents to infringe on peoples' private lives by monitoring their phone calls, bank accounts and mail for one year.

He said the regulations' retroactive principles were against the 1945 Constitution and the 1949 Geneva Convention that said the principle could be implemented in cases of crimes against humanity but not terrorism.

Smita Notosusanto of Cetro said the articles in the regulations were too open to interpretation.

"I'm afraid that the regulations will hamper the works of the election monitoring body. Just think of who is profiting from these regulations," she said.

Smita suspected some interest groups had tried to degrade the quality of the 2004 election or were even attempting to cancel them.

"They can end the election process in conflict areas such as Aceh and Ambon on the grounds that they are trying to avoid terrorism," she said.

Commission I legislator Ishak Latuconsina said the House would consider their opinions and would discuss the regulations when the government submitted them to the House.

Based on the fourth amendment to the 1945 Constitution, the House has to approve or reject the regulations during the current sitting.

Permadi, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said that based on the Constitution, the regulations were issued when the country was in the state of emergency while in the regulations the government did not mention the emergency situation.

Therefore, the House should reject them, he said.