JAKARTA
Thousands of young people demonstrating for the past few days in Indonesia’s capital and other major cities have evoked a sense of deja vu in those who remember the 1998 student protests in the country that brought an end to authoritarian rule. But this time it is about something else.
“The students’ movement back then was for political rights, while now it is for civil liberties,” said Saidiman Ahmad, who two decades ago participated in the mass protests that forced President Suharto to resign after 32 years in power.
“I see the demonstrations as an overflow of anger caused by repression by the state and religious orthodoxy against civil liberties. It is not a new thing. This resistance has already been visible in social media and online.
Now it has taken to the streets,” the researcher at Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) told Arab News.
The trigger of the demonstrations have been revisions to the law that governs the country’s antigraft body and planned revisions to the Criminal Code.
As the current House of Representatives (DPR) is ending its term this month, lawmakers have rushed to pass controversial legislation, which according to the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) head of advocacy, Nelson Nikodemus Simamora, “contradicts the public will, public reason.”
He said the revisions have greatly weakened the authority of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), “contradicting the public will for having Indonesia free from corruption.”
“People are already fed up with the corruption of state officials, as it affects their lives. The (recent) appointment of the KPK’s new leaders, which was also flawed ethically and with regard to their track records, has also added to public anger,” he said.
Lighter sentencing for graft convicts is one of the main problems that would come with revisions to the Criminal Code.
But there are many more clauses that would result in an illiberal change in the country’s democratic environment.
“Now there would be these clauses that will allow to imprison or penalize those who are critical of the government, state institutions, president or vice president,” Simamora said.
