Setara Says Indonesia Failing to Improve Rights

Indonesia has failed to make commendable progress in its human right records over the past year, despite repeated claims by the government that the record has improved, a leading think tank says.

In its 2012 Human Right Enforcement Performance Index released on Tuesday, the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace announced that Indonesia had made very little progress over the past year in the eight categories of human rights protection that it evaluated.

The evaluation was made by 100 experts, academics and activists who scrutinized the country’s performance in the eight categories, called the indicators of improvement in human rights records.

The indicators include freedom of expression, religious freedom, performance of human rights institutions, people’s sense of security and protection by the state, abolition of the death penalty, abolition of discrimination, protection of people’s economic, social and cultural rights, and the handling of past breaches of human rights.

“In general there was improvement in the records, but it is too small to mention and very insignificant,” said the Setara Institute chairman, Hendardi.

The index was created after months of observation and research in 13 provinces nationwide, said Ismail Hasani, a senior Setara researcher.

Indicators were scored on a scale of zero to seven, with zero being the worst record and seven being the best. However, despite incremental improvements in some indicators, Ismail said, none of the categories received scores higher than four in this year’s index. For instance, the handling of past breaches of human rights was given a score of 1.44 in the 2012 report, up from 1.40 in 2011. In freedom of religion, the index only rose to 2.45 from 2.30 in 2011, because in many cases, people were still being denied the freedom to worship according to their respective beliefs.

He cited the slaughter of Ahmadiyah followers in Cikeusik, Banten, the closure of churches throughout West Java, attacks on Shia Muslims in Sampang, Madura, and various other cases.

In terms of freedom of expression, the index only rose to 3.06 from 2.50 in 2011. Ismail cited the ban on a Lady Gaga concert in Jakarta, harassment of journalists, the closure by police of a book discussion by Canadian writer and liberal Islam advocate Irshad Manji, and attacks on human rights activists by security officers as evidence of continued curtailing of freedom of expression in Indonesia over the past year.

Hendardi said such violations of human rights should not have happened during the term of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, because the president had every reason and more than enough time to improve the record more significantly.

“The president should have laid a strong foundation, set the direction and put in place a strategy for advocating human rights with a higher degree of resoluteness as a legacy to strengthen social-political life in Indonesia, but alas, that has not happened,” Hendardi said.

He cited the government’s inability to solve the mystery surrounding the death of human rights activist Munir as an example of its failure in upholding human rights.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, the Setara deputy chairman, said that even though Indonesia had ratified six human rights conventions, “there is still a huge gap between the desire to implement those conventions and the reality on the ground.”

Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva a report on the government’s efforts to improve Indonesia’s human rights records and the challenges it faced. In its report the government noted that issues such as ensuring religious freedom and eradication poverty required extra attention and that it was committed to addressing them.

(2012-12-5/thejakartaglobe)