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Danger of misconduct in terrorism bill: Rights groups
Jakarta Post - March 4, 2016
Hendardi, chairman of human rights watchdog Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, said the terrorism bill lacked important provisions. "The draft bill on terrorism does not take into consideration the handling of victims of terrorist crimes, nor does it address wrongful arrest of suspected terrorists," Hendardi said in a statement on Thursday.
Without a clear mechanism to regulate their rights in the bill, the wrongly accused would be hard-pressed to demand compensation for misconduct by the authorities, despite provisions that guarantee the protection of individual rights, such as Law No. 31/2014 on witness and victim protection and a 2015 government regulation on compensation for victims of wrongful arrest.
Setara also criticized the definition of terrorism used in the draft, which has come to include the "threat of violence" as a catch-all phrase to justify preemptive action. It concludes that the inclusion of several articles in the bill would allow authorities to consider written propaganda or hate speech as preliminary forms of terrorism.
"Although Setara believes hate speech belongs to the category of intolerant expression – the first step towards terrorism – extending the notion of terror acts to include other forms makes it prone to over-criminalization, potentially impinging on people's freedom of expression," Hendardi said.
Puri Kencana Putri of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) also touched on the possibility of misconduct, saying the draft did not include any form of remedial recourse or compensation for victims of wrongful arrest. She said the endorsement of the bill in its current form was the same as passing a draconian law that disregarded civil rights.
"From the very beginning, the articles in the bill have an extreme intonation that tends to limit [people's rights]," Puri told The Jakarta Post.
The proposed revision of the terrorism law, according to a copy of the draft bill made available to the Post, includes 17 provisions that are prone to misuse.
Article 28 of the bill grants the police the authority to extend the detention period for terrorism suspects by up to 30 days. Under Article 31, the police are allowed to wiretap people suspected to be connected to acts of terrorism, but only on the condition that the police report this measure to the Communications and Information Ministry.
Furthermore, Article 43A of the bill allows investigators and prosecutors to place terrorism suspects, defendants and former terrorists, along with their families, in rehabilitation and de-radicalization programs for six months as a preventive measure.
Puri said she was extremely concerned about Article 43A, as it gave credence to the possibility that Indonesia would erect its own version of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility run by the US to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects in Cuba.
Al Araf from human rights group Imparsial said the detention of terrorism suspects in accordance with Article 43A could result in human rights violations and the extended detention period provided leeway for torture in captivity.
The House of Representatives will soon establish an inquiry committee comprising members from Commission I overseeing defense and Commission III overseeing human rights and security, and plans to kick off deliberation after the recess period from March 21 to 31.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/03/04/danger-misconduct-terrorism-bill-rights-groups.html.
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