LBH predicts rights record to worsen

JAKARTA (JP): Human rights activists predicted yesterday that Indonesia's human rights record and legal condition would see no improvement next year.

"As long as the law is still considered subordinate to the government's politics, as is the character of the New Order regime, the situation will remain the same," said the Jakarta office of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in its year-end evaluation delivered by its director Apong Herlina here yesterday.

"And as long as human rights is still placed within the power holders' framework of power, the list of human rights violations will be even longer next year," she said.

This year's economic woes and next March's political power struggle would also color the country's legal and human rights records, Apong said.

The socioeconomic crisis, which she said "can hardly be handled by the government" as reflected by the rising price of staple food, could lead to increasing "social pathology".

She said massive layoffs, land disputes, violence by legal apparatus, violations of people's freedom of expression and the right to assemble, divorce and domestic violence, and sexual violence, were examples of the rising social pathology.

"Those issues will be rife next year, directly or indirectly influenced by the country's socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions," she said.

According to Apong, never before during the New Order era had an economic crisis affected so many people, either from the lower or the middle class.

"Unless the rising problems are tackled seriously and the law is implemented justly, it is very possible that more social upheavals will color the country's legal scene next year," she said.

Concerning human rights violations, Apong said: "It's very difficult to expect a decrease in the number of violations."

She said the current political power, which tends to maintain the status quo, had "repressed" demands for change.

Apong was accompanied yesterday by the institute's land division head Dewi Novirianti, criminal division head Daniel Panjaitan, and special division head Paulus Mahulette.

Reflecting on the past year's legal scene and human rights records, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute said the number of complaints it had received had increased from past years.

This year alone, Apong said, the institute's criminal division had received 225 cases, labor division 280 cases, land division 114, and special division 529 cases.

"The increased number every year signifies that the institute is still trusted and needed by the public," Apong said.

The institute also noted the problems affecting workers here and abroad. It cited the beheading of an Indonesian female worker in Saudi Arabia, and reproached the government for being too slow to respond to the case.

"The government has not been responsible enough for the fate of its people when faced with such a serious situation," the institute said.

The public uproar over the execution, and the planned beheading of fellow worker Nasiroh, indicated the public's increasing legal awareness, the institute said.

"Public criticism and protest effectively pressured the government to take action (and save Nasiroh from the same fate)," it said. (aan)