Demos and responsibility

I'm sure that many parties support and agree with the editorial in Media Indonesia of July 30, 1998 titled Regulating freedom. The concept of responsibility is integrated in freedom, including the freedom of expression. This responsibility refers to oneself, other people and one's community.

In this regard, allow me to suggest that the discussion on the government regulation to replace Law (Perpu) No. 2/1998 to be held at the House of Representatives should adopt the following approach:

1. This Perpu is needed to ensure that organizers of demonstrations will assume the responsibility to regulate themselves. The responsibility to regulate oneself may be defined as follows: (a) conducting demonstrations in an orderly manner without harming the rights of other people/the community and without violating prevailing laws; (b) should something uncalled for occur, such as a riot, violence, destruction, looting and so forth, the organizers must be held responsible and can therefore be subjected to legal sanctions.

2. Security apparatuses (the police in particular) shall be obligated to maintain the orderliness and security of the demonstrations. In other words, organizers of demonstrations must be protected by those maintaining security and order. Should something uncalled for occur, the parties assigned to give protection may also be subjected to legal sanctions.

In this way -- so I suggest -- Law No. 2/1998 should be modified only with respect to the two assumptions referred to above. This means that the enforcement of this law must be based on these two assumptions.

My guess is that any rejection of Law No. 2/1998 would be a reflection of a crisis of confidence in the government and in the parties assigned to maintain security and order rather than the rejection of the assumption on the need to have the law.

AMIR KARAMOY

Jakarta