Foreigners' legal case and mine

From Republika

Police operation dubbed operasi justisi detained me because I failed to show my identity card on July 6, 1994 at 11 a.m. in front of KFC, Jl. Ciputat Raya, Kebayoran Lama, Jakarta. In fact, I do have an ID card but I forgot to bring it along with me on that day. Besides me there were many other people including several foreigners netted during the operation for the same reason.

What concerns me is not the operation but the way the officers treat the foreigners with their special service. The foreigners were only fined a couple of thousand rupiahs by the officers and were immediately released.

In fact, based on their papers shown to the officers, I suspect they were illegal immigrants. One of them only showed a kind of ID issued by his country but without other papers as required from foreigners visiting this country. But when he said he has a relative who is an Indonesian citizen held responsible for his stay in Indonesia, he was immediately released after he paid several thousand rupiahs which he said as "guarantee" for his lack of the required papers.

AMIN RIFAI

Semarang, Central Java