Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Lawmakers plan to bring a bill on mass organizations before a plenary session this week, despite concerns from Muslim and human rights groups.
Abdul Malik Haramain, the lawmaker who chairs the House of Representatives' special committee deliberating the bill, said that the bill would undergo last-minute revisions to address its critics before it was presented to the full House on Friday for enactment into law.
"We have made some changes, and we will include more empowering aspirations in the draft bill before we finally endorse it in the plenary meeting," Abdul said. "We will show the public that we never meant to restrict freedom at all."
The proposed changes appeared to be principally addressed at the bill's critics from Muslim organizations such as the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, who have balked at making the national ideology of Pancasilia their core principles.
Meanwhile, lawmakers have amended the bill to prohibit atheism and Marxism of every stripe. Article 2 of the bill says that mass organizations can be based on ideologies that do not violate Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution.
The committee has also included a provision that would exempt from registration mass groups that were established before independence or that contributed to the anti-colonial struggle.
The passage was said to have been added to assuage the country's largest Islamic social organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, which has threatened to challenge the bill at the Constitutional Court if it is enacted.
The committee also dropped a requirement for mass organizations to reveal the identities of those who donate more than Rp 100 million. "The paragraph will discourage many hamba Allah [servants of God] out there who do not want their donations made public," Indra, a lawmaker from the PKS, said.
Passage of the bill at the plenary session on Friday, however, is not guaranteed. The leaders of several political parties in the House have asked the special committee to continue deliberations and seek more input from their critics.
Deputy House speaker Pramono Anung from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), for example, said that it would be better to extend deliberations until the next House session to produce a more pro-people bill. "It's a must to listen to the people, especially approaching the election," Pramono said.
Meanwhile, the leaders of other political parties in the House, including Hidayat Nur Wahid from the PKS and Teguh Juwarno from the National Mandate Party (PAN), concurred with Pramono, saying that their lawmakers would reject the bill.
"We need more time to promulgate the bill to the public," Hidayat said. "It's the only way to settle the different understandings about what the bill really aims to achieve."
Separately, human rights activists have asked that the House drop the bill, which they said was unnecessary. Observers have said that the latest draft of the bill contains articles that could hamper freedom of assembly.
The bill, for example, would allow the government to freeze or disband organizations through court rulings, raising fears that such powers would be used to silence critics by accusing them of separatism and going against the Constitution and Pancasila.
Haris Azhar from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) criticized lawmakers for continuing to deliberate the bill.
"We don't need the bill because it will restrict freedom of association, regardless of the changes the House adopt in the draft," Haris said. "The bill aims only to take control over mass groups that are gaining support from the public," he added.