Experts still critical of antiterrorism legislation

Experts still critical of antiterrorism legislation

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The antiterrorism bill needs to provide a clear definition of
a terrorist act, valid information to arrest terrorists and fair
treatment of suspected terrorists, experts said on Friday.

The government must also prepare rulings as a guidance for
antiterrorism law and implement them not long after the
endorsement of the bill to meet public demands not accommodated
in the law, they said.

Kusnanto Anggoro of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), legal expert Frans Hendra Winata and Rifqie Muna
of the Research Institute for Democracy and Peace (RiDEP) said a
terrorist act must be declared a politically motivated crime,
otherwise the law would be toothless.

The bill should also define terrorism so it could not be just
tagged on separatist groups like the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and
the Papua Freedom Organization (OPM), Kusnanto said.

The latest draft law defines terrorism as an intentional
illegal act that endangers people and their belongings or sparks
widespread destruction, fear or death.

But it stipulates terrorist acts are not political or
politically motivated crimes. Antonius Sujata, a member of the
team that drafted the proposed legislation, said it was defined
as such to ensure the extradition process could be undertaken.

However, Kusnanto said extradition of suspected terrorists as
political criminals could be carried out by endorsing particular
agreements on terrorist issues with other countries.

He suggested that the bill recognize intelligence reports as
preliminary evidence to arrest terrorist suspects, though
stressing the reports must be valid and accountable.

"Otherwise the article can be misused to just arrest anyone
who is considered a danger to the government," he said, adding
that so far there was no mechanism to test that intelligence
reports were not fake.

Suspected terrorists must also have access to lawyers, which
is not obviously stated in the bill, Kusnanto said.

There were other human rights violations in the bill such as
blocking and disclosing bank accounts of suspected terrorist
during investigations, he said.

Frans said he worried about the establishment of an ad hoc
unit to tackle terrorism.

"As the team includes military and its task has not yet been
clearly defined, it may emulate a superbody under previous
subversion laws," he said.

In the past, a military team was set up to handle subversion
accusations and had the power to arrest people for uncertain
reason for long periods.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri instructed her ministers on
Thursday to improve the bill before submitting it to the House of
Representatives, but it was not clear which articles she meant.

Antonius speculated the bill must further elaborate on the
definition of terrorism and the establishment of the ad hoc unit.

"We need to ensure that the ad hoc unit works transparently
and does not become too powerful," he said.