B

ack in the 1960s when I was a boy in primary school, I was aware of Indonesia every day. Although I lived in Tasmania, the small island state south of the Australian mainland, Indonesia was very real to me. You see, Tasmanian school children wrote in Tasman exercise books. All our sums and sentences were written in books with a picture of the Dutchman, Abel Tasman on the cover.

In 1642 Abel Tasman was sent by Antony van Diemen, the govenor general of the East India Company, from Batavia (Jakarta), to search for the Great South Land, and on Nov. 24, he sighted the west coast of Tasmania that he named Van Diemen's Land, later to be renamed Tasmania by the British.

Tasman died in Batavia/Jakarta in 1659 and was buried for a while in the Old Dutch Reformed Church, but I have been informed by the helpful staff at the Museum, which now occupies the sight in Fatahillah Square, that his remains have been moved to another cemetery in the city that I have not yet been able to locate.

In Hobart, Tasmania's capital city, there is a fine bronze tableau that was given by the Indonesian government a few years ago to commemorate Tasman's endeavors and to recognize the links that exist between Indonesia and Tasmania.

Tasmania, like the islands of Indonesia, is a paradise. But, like Indonesia, it has a darker side to its history.

In 1830, under British rule, a prison settlement was established at Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsular, an isolated wilderness area almost surrounded by sea. Here re-offending convicts were sent to endure harsh treatment at the hands of their prison warders and the elements.

The place became infamous as a symbol of inhumanity. It was here too that the British established the first ever boys' prison called Point Puer. Puer is the Latin word for "boy".

It housed 3,500 boys in total, some as young as 9, arrested for petty crimes such as stealing a toy or a handkerchief or a loaf of bread. For such crimes a boy could be given a prison sentence of anything up to seven years and be subjected to heavy labor, bad food, the lash, terrors of isolation and a lack of human tenderness, dignity and respect. That was a long time ago. Nothing remains of the boys' prison now except a few stone blocks.

Back to Indonesia in 2009, 10 boys, aged 8 to 15, who were allegedly gambling Rp 1,000 (US 10 cents) on a coin toss game and illegally offering shoe-shine services at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, have been arrested, kept behind bars for over a month without trial, forced to lie in the midday sun, isolated from their families, prevented from sitting important examinations and no doubt, have endured psychological and emotional trauma because of these experiences. Their trial began in the Tangerang District Court on Monday, July 13.

A photograph of the boys, some of them in school uniforms, appeared on the front page of The Jakarta Post, all of them wearing party masks "to conceal their identity".

The image could not be more ironic. If a picture paints a thousand words, that photo is encyclopedic. While the intention was to conceal the identity of a group of poor boys accused of what can only be called a trivial breach of the law, those masks also reveal an aspect of the face of Indonesian law and justice that it is sometimes childish and petty.

If the law was child-like, with a lively and just sense of the rules of the game, as children naturally are, these boys would not be in court. Ultimately it is not the boys who are on trial. What is on trial is the capacity of adult Indonesians to draw up, enact and enforce laws that don't violate a sense of proportion, common sense and human rights.

Evidently, the boys are accused of violating Article 303 of the Criminal Code, and if found guilty can face a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.

I'm not familiar with Article 303 of the Criminal Code, but I do know something about kids as one who worked amongst them for many years as a priest and teacher. I recall the words of Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town who spent his life reclaiming thousands of youths from the streets and a possible life of crime.

He said, "There is no such thing as a bad boy." And I am familiar with children's literature and the words of Bumble from Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist: "If that's the law Sir, then the law's an ass."

Dragging children through the courts for trivial matters is costly and time consuming. It diverts manpower and resources away from more important things, diminishes the prestige of the judiciary and causes undue and unreasonable hurt for what is, arguably in this case, an insignificant infraction of the legal system.

Besides, such procedures are generally seen by the public as simply ludicrous and rightly makes the legal system look like "an ass".

Indonesia at present is proudly celebrating significant advances in the establishment of a stable and just democratic society.

Just as in the recent elections, the Indonesian people have clearly voiced their desire for change and are looking to the future for a better deal for all, so too I hope that existing laws which are draconian, inflexible, violate people's rights, are out of date and simply defy common decency and a sense of proportion, will be relegated to the dustbin where they belong.

Point Puer was eventually closed down because the public would no longer tolerate such a place and what went on there. I hope Indonesian public opinion will make it clear that there is no place for anything like it in Indonesia today.