NGOs want Komnas HAM to be more powerful
Bambang Nurbianto and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) urged the government on Tuesday to give more power to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to ensure proper legal processing of those suspected of human rights abuses.
The call was made after the UN Committee against Torture expressed concern over the record of Indonesia's implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Treatment and Punishment.
Concern was conveyed by the committee at a meeting with Indonesian delegates last week in Geneva that several findings of the rights body had not been made public, giving rise to suspicion that certain persons were being protected.
A representative of the coalition, Munarman, told a media conference on Tuesday that a stronger and more independent rights body was needed to prevent the practice of impunity being given to certain persons involved in human rights abuses.
Soni Setyana, another representative of the coalition, further disclosed that Indonesia had been criticized for the many untouchable figures from both the military and bureaucracy, despite their being allegedly involved in human rights abuses.
"Komnas HAM needs more authority, including the right to announce its findings before they are submitted to the attorney general for further legal action," said Soni, who is an activist of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (LBHI).
The coalition's media conference was in response to Indonesia's first report to the committee on its implementation of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel Treatment and Punishment.
The government, which ratified the convention in 1998, should have made a progress report on its implementation in the following year.
Munarman, who represented Indonesian NGOs at the Geneva meeting with several other activists, said the Indonesian delegation, led by Indonesia's permanent representative to the UN, did not disclose the government's effort to solve the cases.
The report only explained the normative legal system in Indonesia without dealing with the actual implementation of the convention.
It was in stark contrast to the version contained in the Indonesian NGOs' report, which disclosed that the practice of torture against citizens still continued.
The report underlined three main patterns of torture: First, torture used to force citizens to give up their political rights, which occurred in conflict areas such as Aceh and Papua. Second, torture used to force citizens to give up their property like land or other economic resources. Third was torture arising from abuses by military and police officers.
The Indonesian NGOs also slammed the Indonesian official delegation for rejecting an appeal from the committee that Indonesia invite its special rapporteur to hold investigations into several torture cases in Indonesia.
"It shows that Indonesia has no commitment to prevent torture," said Munarman, adding that such a rejection could damage the country's image in the international community.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said on Tuesday there was an urgent need for the country to improve on its record, especially in eliminating torture, but underlined that it would take time.
"We need to engage in self-improvement to eliminate torture. I believe we could eliminate such occurrences if the security forces understood the regulations and respected human rights ... but it requires a change of approach to improve our ability to respect human rights," the minister said.