Permit study plan draws skepticism

JAKARTA (JP): Caution and skepticism greeted the government's announcement yesterday that it was reviewing its policy regarding the issuance of permits for public gatherings.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) questioned the very existence of the policy and expressed concern that the review would result in a tightening of the regulations.

"I'm am worried that it will only toughen things," Walhi Program Coordinator Emmy Hafild told The Jakarta Post.

The 1945 Constitution guarantees people's right to assemble, she pointed out.

Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said on Monday that he had assigned a team within his office to review the controversial policy.

Emmy said it was a pity that the review team did not include outside experts and non-government groups.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said such a review was long overdue. "In a democracy, the politics of permits and prohibition are something totally unnecessary," a spokesman for the foundation said.

By law, any gathering involving more than five people must have a permit from the authorities. Police have, in the past, turned down a number of requests for permission to hold seminars, public debates and even cultural performances, on the grounds that they had the potential to undermine national stability. There have also been occasions on which police have broken up gatherings that did not have permits.

The YLBHI said that at least 18 gatherings were disbanded by the police last year. This year the number has already reached 15, the foundation said.

Last year, the YLBHI was itself a victim of the permits policy when its seminar on the politically-sensitive issue of land disputes was broken up by police.

Since December last year three meetings organized by Walhi regarding the government's nuclear power plants have been unable to proceed because they were denied permits.

Censorship

Emmy Hafild compared the requirement for a permit to hold a public meeting with censorship. She said only entertainment gatherings which could affect public order, such as rock concerts, should require permits because of security considerations.

"This isn't the Old Order," she said, using the popular term for the administration of former Indonesian president Sukarno.

The YLBHI maintained that citizens should only need to report, not to get permission for, public gatherings.

"The politics of permits, looking back at past history, is a political heritage of the colonial Dutch-Indies and fascist Japan," it said.

Intellectual Emha Ainun Nadjib, a strong critic of the government, said that, as on many previous occasions, the government had recently barred him from making a public appearance.

He told reporters that in the latest incident he had been barred him from addressing a meeting at an Islamic institute in Lamongan, Central Java.

"This is clearly a serious violation of the Constitution...It is a disservice to democracy, devoid of any rationality," he said.

The director of Golkar's Legal Aid Institution, Martin Hutabarat, told the Post there was a need to define the criteria for granting permits for gatherings.

"We should be ashamed if scientific activities also need permission. I can't believe that in our 50th year of independence we still do not trust campus intellectuals," he said.

He called for greater transparency in the permit issuance process and said that in the event of any dispute, the matter should be settled by a court. "Let the court rule on whether or not an activity should be given a permit, rather than letting the decision be based on the whim of an official," he said.

In Semarang, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, Muladi, said that the requirements for the granting of permits for public gatherings should be reasonable and responsible. Otherwise, he said, Indonesia would appear to be a repressive society.

Muladi defended the government's right to regulate gatherings.

"This right must respected as long as it is aimed at maintaining public order and is for the national interest," he said, adding that it was often society itself which sparked disorder.

Andi Mattalata, a legislator from the ruling political group Golkar, said that the regulation requiring permits for gatherings must not contradict Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of association and expression, Antara reported.

Andi said that, on occasion, those rights had been abused by certain people in the service of their own political interests.

Royani Haminullah, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party, said he doubted that new regulation would be any better. "I fear that it will be even more restrictive," he said.

Ircham Abdurrachim of the United Development Party faction said that the regulation should not remove the people's freedom to voice their opinions.

"I think it is ironic that, as political stability increases over time, our freedom to express opinions is decreasing," he said. (imn/har/mds)