Law on Racial, Ethnic Discrimination Abolishment Forgotten
Many Indonesians seem to have forgotten the existence of Law No. 40/2008 on the abolishment of racial and ethnic discrimination, despite the various unresolved problems related to such matters that should be urgently addressed.
By
·4 minutes read
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Today marks the 10th anniversary of the issuance of Law No. 40/2008 on the abolishment of racial and ethnic discrimination. However, the law seems to have been forgotten amid the increasing concerns that racial and ethnic issues are being abused for certain goals, such as political gains in the 2019 general election.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which the law’s Article 8 stipulates as the overseer of all efforts to abolish racial and ethnic discriminations (PDRE), has yet to carry out its duties optimally. “We have poor tools to detect PDRE efforts,” Komnas HAM commissioner Choirul Anam said in his office in Jakarta on Friday (9/11/2018).
In order to improve the law’s implementation, Choirul said, a Komnas HAM plenary meeting in early October approved the standards for PDRE norms and regulation. In the future, the standards are hoped to serve as a guide for all state institutions.
However, the lack of a government regulation (PP) on oversight procedures by Komnas HAM, as mandated in Law No. 40/2008, has hindered Komnas HAM from optimally carrying out its duties related to PDRE.
Law and Human Rights Ministry Law Director General Widodo Ekatjahjana said that he pledged to push for the PP’s creation at the National Law Development Agency (BPHN) immediately. “If possible, we will make the proposal this November. Hopefully a regulation for the implementation of Law No. 40/2008 will be created next year,” he said.
Human rights group Setara Institute research director Halili said that civil society had not done enough to push for such a regulation. He said that the public did not push for the law’s implementation as hard as they did when they campaigned for the law’s issuance
Consequently, many Indonesians today are not even aware of the law’s existence, as seen in the low level of public reports of PDRE incidents to Komnas HAM.
From 2011 to 2018, Komnas HAM only received 101 reports of PDRE cases, despite it receiving around 100 public reports of human rights violations every month.
Komnas HAM received the largest number of reports of PDRE cases, specifically 36, in 2016. Jakarta is the city with the most PDRE reports at 34, followed by Yogyakarta with 25 reports.
Increasing
Amid the public’s “forgetfulness” of the existence of Law No. 40/2008, experts say that the number of cases of racial and ethnic discrimination nationwide is rising. This can be seen in the annual reports of moderate Islamic think-tank the Wahid Foundation on issues of freedom of religion and faith in Indonesia.
The foundation’s records show that there were 204 incidents of violations of freedom of religion and faith in 2016, 190 in 2015 and 158 in 2014. Several provinces, namely West Java, Jakarta, Central Java and East Java, have been in the top five regions with the largest number of violations for several years.
Wahid Foundation director Mujtaba Hamdi said that a 2017 study the foundation conducted found a narrative shift on intolerance. While intolerance was previously commonly identified with radical acts, in recent times it has shifted to verbal assaults in the form of hate speech on social media. They may be small-scaled but, when they are committed by influential figures, it seems as if they are socioculturally justified. “Consequently, people normalize discriminatory speech on certain ethnicities and religions,” Mujtaba said.
Intolerance is part of racial and ethnic discrimination. Choirul said that race was understood as national groups based on physical features or lineage, while ethnicity was understood as groupings of people based on certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, norms, languages, history, geography or kinship.
State administrative law observer Refly Harun said that the sluggish implementation of Law No. 40/2008 was common in Indonesia. “We have so many good legal instruments that cannot be implemented properly as no one has any idea of who is responsible to ensure that the regulations are carried out,” he said.
This is common, especially with regulations that ratify international conventions. Law No. 40/2008, for instance, ratifies the international convention against racial and ethnic discriminations.
Law and human rights study center head Herlambang P Wiratraman at the Airlangga University said that breakthroughs would be required to optimize the implementation of Law No. 40/2008. “The government must be brave in openly fighting racial discrimination and not only based on political calculations related to the 2019 election. The public should have exemplar figures in the government to protect the nation’s diversity,” Herlambang said.
Such breakthroughs are urgently needed nowadays as many are abusing or manipulating issues of racial, religious, ethnic and intergroup relations for electoral gains ahead of the 2019 election. This can threaten the atmosphere of togetherness amid the nation’s diversity.