Following its move to reject some recommendations from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the Indonesian government made a face-saving gesture by offering to set up a long-awaited truth and reconciliation commission.
Speaking at the UNHRC’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland late on
Wednesday, Representative of Indonesian Permanent Mission to Geneva Edi
Yusuf said that the government was working to finalize the bill on a
truth and reconciliation commission.
“This bill is designed to strengthen our national legal framework in dealing with past human rights abuses,” Edi said.
In
its response to the UNHRC, the Indonesian government also offered to
set up a so-called “human rights-friendly district” and establish human
rights guidelines for local administration ordinances.
“Other
legal frameworks are in the pipeline. First, we are finalizing a
ministerial decree at Law and Human Rights Ministry on the introduction
human rights-friendly districts. The other is a joint ministerial decree
between the Law and Human Rights Ministry and the Home Ministry on
establishing human rights parameters in the formulations of bylaws,” he
said.
None of the three proposals directly addressed the UNHRC’s
30-point recommendation issued following its quadrennial Universal
Periodic Review (UPR) in May.
The government decided to reject a
recommendation from the rights body that urged Indonesia to repeal laws
and regulations that curtailed religious freedom.
The UNHRC
requested that Indonesia amend or revoke laws and regulations that
banned religious freedom, including the 1965 Blasphemy Law, the 1969 and
2006 ministerial decrees on the construction of places of worship and
the 2008 joint ministerial decree on Ahmadiyah.
In addition to
rejecting recommendations on religious rights, the government also
stated in its report to the UNHRC that it was unable to allow foreign
journalists free access to Papua and West Papua, as proposed by the
French delegation during the May meeting.
The Indonesian
government also refused to allow the United Nations special rapporteurs
on indigenous people and minority groups to enter the country. The
Foreign Ministry said the government had abided by the Constitution when
drafting its response to the recommendations.
Earlier in his
presentation, Edi said that the Indonesian government decided to reject
the 30-point recommendation based on considerations that the actions it
contained were mostly irrelevant to conditions on the ground.
“Some
of the recommendations are also subject to further national debates for
possible inclusion in the next human rights action plan,” Edi said.
The
government’s refusal to adopt the 30 key recommendations has raised
criticisms at home, with rights groups blasting the government for
engaging in an unnecessary publicity campaign abroad while continuing to
undermine human rights protection at home.
“We don’t need more
regulations to ensure the promotion and protection of human rights, but
at the same time we also have law and regulations that have continued to
be used as legal foundations to abuse the rights of the people,”
Poengky Indarti of watchdog group Imparsial told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Poengky,
however, applauded the plan for the truth and reconciliation
commission, saying that it could bring justice to perpetrators of past
human rights abuses, so long as its founding legislation did not provide amnesty for perpetrators of past violations.