Extra efforts needed to ensure human rights
Extra efforts needed to ensure human rights
JAKARTA (JP): Prominent activists said yesterday that proper
observance of human rights in Indonesia is a long way off and
that "extra-efforts" will be necessary to reach the goal.
Activists Soetandyo Wignjosoebroto, Todung Mulya Lubis and
Hilman Farid Setiadi agreed in a seminar that 50-year old
Indonesia was too young to have its own model of human rights.
Indonesia will need at least another 50 years before it can
implement principles of human rights properly, said Soetandyo, a
member of the National Commission on Human Rights, in a panel
discussion held by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).
The discussion was organized in connection with the upcoming
world human rights anniversary which falls on Dec. 10. Also
present were Roekmini Koesoemo Astoeti, a member of the rights
commission, human right campaigner H.J.C. Princen and Adnan
Buyung Nasution of the YLBHI.
Indonesia officially believes that while the country
acknowledges the universality of human rights, any policy should
take local cultural, political and economic conditions into
account.
Soetandyo said although Indonesian officials liked to claim
that Indonesia has its own unique system of human rights, the
concept was in fact not original.
"We only adopt the values of western human rights principles
and make some adjustments," he said. "Indonesia has no original
concept."
Citing an example from a western country, Soetandyo said that
the human rights principles in the U.S. developed long after it
gained independence more than 200 years ago.
"It seems that Indonesia will follow the same pattern as that
of the United States unless some extra efforts are made," he
said.
Lubis and Hilman threw their support behind Soetandyo's
argument.
"Observation of human rights will go slowly unless there is
political will on the part of the government to speed up
democratization," said Lubis, also known as a senior lawyer.
"Economic liberalization and wide-open global communication
will also help accelerate the transfer of information, including
human rights issues," Hilman said.
The activists also agreed that human rights observance in
Indonesia had been marred this year with several gross
violations.
They said in a separate session that one obvious example of a
major human rights violation in the country this year was the
banning of three weeklies, Tempo, Editor, and DeTik in June.
Lubis said the press ban proved that the freedom of speech and
expression and the right to organize were hampered for unclear
reasons.
However, Hilman said that to a certain degree there was still
freedom of organization in Indonesia, saying that several
outspoken non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the
Alliance of the Indonesian Journalists and the Indonesian
Prosperous Workers Union (SBSI), were not banned by the
government.
"There was only pressure on the organizational leaders and
activists," he said.(imn)