Markus Junianto Silaholo & Ismira Lutfia – The National Human Rights Commission has demanded the House of Representatives halt drafting the controversial state secrecy bill because of fears it could lead to government abuse of power.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Ifdhal Kasim, chairman of the commission (Komnas HAM), said the bill, currently being drafted by House Commission I for defense, information, foreign and public affairs, greatly restricted the right of people to access information.
Ifdhal warned that the bill, if endorsed, would hark back to the New Order days when former President Suharto controlled information with an iron fist. He added that it would be better for the government to wait until the Freedom of Information Law 2008 came into effect in 2010.
"Every government needs to have a state secrecy law but it has to clearly define what it categorizes as state secrets," Ifdhal explained, saying that the Freedom of Information Law already had provisions clearly designating what type of information the public could access.
The bill, he said, would give the government more power to arbitrarily classify any information it deemed fit as "strategic" to prevent its release.
"This could deter the public from accessing [the information]," Ifdhal said.
At the same press gathering, Agus Sunaryanto from Indonesia Corruption Watch said that if the bill was passed into law it could be a serious setback in the fight against corruption, particularly involving members of the House.
"There are more urgent bills to endorse than this, such as the anticorruption court bill," Agus said, referring to allegations that the notoriously corrupt House has been stonewalling ratification of the bill.
Oslan Purba from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said it was better for the legislature to endorse the military tribunal bill or the national security bill instead of the state secrecy bill.
Agus Sudibyo, chairman of the SET Foundation, a local freedom of information advocacy group, said the government was taking advantage of people's dissatisfaction with delayed reforms to push through a law that jeopardized access to information.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said on Tuesday that NGOs should not be worried about the bill because it was mainly based on the Freedom of Information Law, "which guarantees transparency and accountability of all government institutions and agencies with few designated exceptions."
He said the bill defined state secrets as any information or activity officially declared confidential by the president, or a ministry authorized by the president, because such information threatened state sovereignty or security.
The state secrecy bill was formulated last year in a bid to offset the impact of the Freedom of Information Law, which was passed in April 2008.