The Indonesian government has remained committed to its resolve to promote human rights and has vowed to strengthen its efforts, following the recent publication of a peer review on the state of human rights in Indonesia in 2014 by the US Department of State, which highlights continued rights abuses in the country.
Tama Salim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Sun, June 28 2015, 2:31 PM
The Indonesian government has remained committed to its resolve to promote human rights and has vowed to strengthen its efforts, following the recent publication of a peer review on the state of human rights in Indonesia in 2014 by the US Department of State, which highlights continued rights abuses in the country.
Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said the government was still reviewing the report, but was quick to emphasize that Indonesia remained committed to protecting human rights.
“The government’s commitment to human rights is obvious. With the established democratic system in Indonesia, the checks and balances system will naturally fall into place,” she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Retno said Indonesia had always actively and constructively engaged in such peer review mechanisms, including one conducted by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which the country has joined twice.
Furthermore, she said any recommendations gleaned from such external evaluations would be integrated into a subsequent national action plan.
In light of Indonesia’s average report card in the field of human rights, Retno said any country in the world could face a bump in the road in protecting human rights.
“There isn’t a single country that is immune to human rights problems. What’s important is that these countries continue to show the utmost commitment to promoting human rights,” she said.
On Thursday, the US Department of State published an annual collection of reports on the state of human rights around the world, dubbed the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014.
The country reports were initially collated for the perusal of the US House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, in which it must convey “the status of internationally recognized human rights […] in all foreign countries which are members of the UN”.
In the Indonesia report summary, researchers highlighted a number of negative developments in the field of human rights last year, including the failure of the government in conducting “transparent, public investigations into some allegations of unjustified killings, torture and abuse by security forces”.
The report cited the troubles of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in confirming the alleged use of excessive force during arrests and operations by the military or police, citing incidents such as an Aug. 1, 2014 military operation that killed five people connected to the Papua separatist movement.
The report also stated that “despite high profile arrests and convictions, widespread corruption in the government, judiciary and security forces remained a problem”.
Police inaction, a lack of protection for religious and social minorities, abuse of prisoners and detainees, harsh prison conditions, trafficking of persons, child labor and a failure to enforce labor standards and worker rights were also cited as problems.
In spite of the problems, US Secretary of State John Kerry praised Indonesia for having successfully carried out decidedly peaceful and fair elections last year.
“Indonesia’s young democracy saw a peaceful electoral transition to a leader who had challenged its traditional centers of power,” Kerry said in his preface to the report.
Kerry, who oversees the team that released the annual report, acknowledged that some governments might take issue with their report cards.
He insisted, however, that the reports would provide an incentive for countries to honor the rights and dignity of their citizens. “I hope it will inspire us — people here and around the world — between this year and next to take more steps, hopefully giant steps, in the direction of greater justice, wider decency and peace,” he concluded.
Puri Kencana Putri of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) urged the government to take the report seriously.
She said that although President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had a hands-on approach to resolving economic problems, he did not apply the same approach to human rights violations in the present and the past.
“As a result, [the President] becomes an easy target for speculation and criticism as the model of accountability established by the previous [administration] is poorly implemented by Jokowi,” Puri told the Post on Saturday.