RI to take steps against racial hatred

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legislators are taking a minor step forward in the way it perceives bigotry against race, ethnicity and religion as lawmakers proposed a new bill they hoped would become the country's first law that deals with such issues.

The House of Representatives' plenary meeting on Tuesday agreed to start discussing the internally proposed bill, along with another on the protection of witnesses and victims.

Nine House factions hailed the race bill and said it was necessary to define and legislate the rampant discrimination within the country's pluralistic society, Antara reported.

The House steering committee would decide whether to form a special committee or appoint one of its nine commissions to start debating the two bills, said House deputy chairman Tosari Widjaja of the United Development Party (PPP).

The draft law on the elimination of racial and ethnic discrimination comes in the face of a long running history of anti-Chinese sentiment and threats of communal clashes simmering across the country.

The bill, however, fails to address gender issues. It does however address various other issues under its race and ethnicity categories.

The bill seeks to classify people according to physical differences such as skin color variations, type of hair and body height.

While ethnicity would be classified into separate categories such as customs, traditions, languages, religion, history, geography and cultural relationships.

Chapter III would ban public displays of hatred against those defined as different from the dominant ethnic/religious group, which may include literature, drawings, speeches or photos.

Violations of this law could result in jail terms of at least one year to five years, and a penalty of between Rp 1 million (about US$112) and Rp 100 million.

Individuals and non-governmental organizations specializing in racial and ethnic discrimination may file lawsuits and seek compensation from those violating the law, if passed.

It will also give the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) the responsibility to monitor the implementation of the law. It seeks to give Komnas HAM the authority to evaluate compliance by the government and seek facts on individuals, groups, public or private institutions suspected of racially discriminative action.

The bill further demands the government to revoke a few of the dozens of discriminative regulations still on the books, and to ensure all citizens stand equal before the law.

Law No 26/1958, for instance, on citizenship requires Indonesian born Chinese to obtain documents not required for "indigenous" Indonesians.

Presidential Decree No. 240/1966 requires all Chinese- Indonesians to change their names to Indonesian-sounding ones.

While Presidential Instruction No.37/1967 limits the education and economic opportunities for Chinese-Indonesians.

However, the anti-discriminative bill, if it becomes a law, may not be of much help to quell rampant ethnic riots, according to sociologist Ignas Kleden. He said much more depended on law enforcement and society's own maturity.

"We have an anti-corruption law, but still corruption goes on worse than ever," he told The Jakarta Post. "So we need something more concrete."

Since 1998 Indonesia has seen a rise in communal clashes many of which continue despite numerous peace accords signed.

According to Ignas, the country needed a social movement to back up an anti-discrimination law as well as political support.

Ethnic riots, he said, had more to do with economic injustice than racial hatred.