House urged to drop police bill

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have urged the House of Representatives (DPR) to discard a police bill scheduled to be passed into law on Wednesday, on grounds that it adopts both militaristic and centralistic characteristics.

The group also called on legislators to allow the public to participate in revising the controversial bill.

"All factions in the House must consider the aspirations of the people by suspending enactment of the bill until comprehensive revision can be undertaken," Adnan Pandupraja from Indonesian Police Watch said here on Friday.

The suggestion was submitted by the watchdog, the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation, Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

Pandu said that the bill could be seen as militaristic because of the prioritization of maintaining security and public order above the role of protecting the public.

As protection of the public was listed as the third priority, the bill had betrayed the whole community, he said.

Human rights campaigner Bambang Widjojanto said, "This indicates that the mind-set of the power holder is yet to change."

He emphasized that the new bill provided no clear guidelines regarding the authority of police to use lethal weapons.

"In the context of the implementation of regional autonomy, the police bill does not meet with the plan for decentralization across the country," he said.

Bambang suggested that hasty enactment of the police bill indicated strong political motives, and was unusual considering that the most recent revision to the police law was in 1997.

"The bill shows that the current power holders are in need of security assurance," he said.

Meanwhile, Hajriyanto Y. Thohari, a member of the special committee assigned to deliberate the bill, said the greater level of authority given to the National Police was intended to make the force workable.

"The police should have more authority to ensure that it works," he told The Jakarta Post.

He said the increased authority, including weapons possession, was given due to the current period of national transition, which was full of anarchy.

"We know that the police carry no weapons in democratic countries, but we need them in such a transitional period," Hajriyanto from the Golkar faction said.

Several criticized articles: * Article 2: The main tasks of the National Police are maintaining security and public order, enforcing the law and providing protection and service to the people. * Article 14 (a): Keeping order, safeguarding and supervising the activities of the public. * Article 14 (c): Encouraging the people to boost participation in law awareness and law obedience.