Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The government would be accused of abusing human rights if it endorsed a tougher antiterrorism law giving the power for police to detain a terrorist suspect for two years without charge, a top official from the National Human Rights Commission said on Tuesday.
Speaking to journalists in Jakarta, Ifdhal Kasim said the current antiterrorism law was based on the notion that terrorism is a common criminal action. It means that any regulation must fit within the framework of the common criminal justice system and national laws on human rights, he said.
"A two year detention without charge violates our human rights law and it cannot happen," Ifdhal said.
"The family of the detainee would be banned from seeing him in jail under the regulation. It means the government would also violate the rights of the family," he said.
"Even the subversive law during Suharto's era never stipulated such a long detention term, it only gave one day for security authorities to detain a suspect without charge."
However, the two year detention terms could be accepted if the government changed its definition of terrorism, he said.
"The government must first announce that terrorism is no more a common crime, but has become an action against the nation's sovereignty. With that, the focus becomes a war against terrorism, like that being applied in the United States," Ifdhal said.
"The Government and the House of Representatives must create a new law based on such a concept. Without it, the government would violate human rights values."
Ansyad Mbai, the head of the antiterror desk at the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said earlier that police powers to detain a terrorist suspect for just seven days without charge, like those currently stipulated in the antiterrorism law, were insufficient, and two years was a more appropriate time frame.
He said the country is too "soft" on terrorists and is pushing for a Malaysian-style and Singaporean-style Internal Security Act. He claimed that the lack of such a law had become the main reason for wanted terrorist Noordin M Top to operate in Indonesia rather than in the neighboring countries.
Usman Hamid from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) on Tuesday criticized Ansyad's statement, saying that such a senior official should not compare Indonesia with the two other nations. "We perform democracy with human rights and legal enforcement better than them," Usman said.
Usman said detaining a terrorist suspect for two years would not give a guarantee of better handling of antiterrorism by the government.
Usman alleged that the idea was meant to hide the fact that the country's security agencies do not have sufficient capabilities to effectively handle terrorism.