National security, terrorism, and human rights in Indonesia

Abstract

Conference on Constitution and Human Rights last year in the same place highlighted the importance of national security laws in certain countries in Asia. Although for Indonesia this law was not the issue discussed in last years conference, development in international politics since 11 September 2001 brought about deeper discourse on this type of law in the country. Terrorist attack on the United States (US) has started war against terrorism. Though not admitted, this war has been broadened to a war against Islamic community across the globe. This issue is important for Asia, as many of the Asian countries are the population. Many measures have been taken to deal with war against terrorism in the international level. One important measure is the imposition to initiate a set of legal instruments to smoothen legal procedures against international terrorist organisations through, among others, the establishment of new national security laws related to international terrorist and multilateral and bilateral agreement on the investigation of international terrorist organisations. Indonesia is not an exception in this development, especially because it is a country with the biggest Moslem population in the world and the socio-political instability across the country. The US stated its allegation of the existence of Al Qaeda-related terrorist organisation in Indonesia. An Indonesian citizen was also investigated by the US for the allegation of being a member of Al Qaeda. The draft law on Anti-Terrorism is discussed in Indonesia at this moment and shortly will be presented before the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR, Indonesian parliament) by the government. This draft law contains special measures on terrorism as is underscored after 11 September 2001, different with national security law which Indonesia does not have until now due to the protest against the draft law on the State of Emergency (Undang-Undang tentang Penanggulangan Keadaan Bahaya, UU PKB) in 1999. As indicated in the program of this workshop, the aim of the workshop is to compare changes in security laws in several countries of the region and to discuss the implications of these changes for constitutions and human rights. Therefore, this paper will not only discuss the draft law on Anti-Terrorism, but also will briefly discuss the previous laws related to national security in order to observe the special measures which put aside human rights under the name of national security, as a basis to further discuss the issue in the workshop. Show more