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.