T

he National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has criticized provincial and regional administration officials for poor human rights enforcement.

Komnas HAM head Ifdhal Kasim said a lack of attention on human rights from provincial leaders could be attributed to a perception that enforcement was primarily Jakarta’s prerogative.

Speaking on the North Sumatra situation in North Sumatra specifically, he said the Governor, regents and mayors should be held to account for widespread allegations of human rights violations in the province.

According to Komnas HAM, 15 percent of 3,000 cases of alleged human rights violation reported by the public from January to October this year involved regional leaders who issued unpopular bylaws or implemented unpopular policies.

Provincial regional leaders, Ifdhal said, thought that human rights was not a provincial issue so there was almost no sensitivity for local rights enforcement.

“That results in limited budget allocations for human rights in the provinces,” he said.

He said regional leaders had also failed to provide a complaint mechanism for human rights victims.

“Now we see that people whose rights have been violated in various provinces can only resort to noisy protests, which sometimes turn violent. This is due to the lack of a complaint mechanism provided by the leader,” Ifdhal told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a human rights workshop in Medan on Wednesday.

At least a third of the province’s 97 regents and mayors attended the workshop, which also included leaders from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, North Sumatra, Riau Islands, Riau and West Sumatra provinces.

Ifdhal said most of human rights violations in Sumatra took place on plantations where local authorities lacked experience in handling violations.

“Many of the human rights violation cases involving the plantation sector were recorded in Sumatra, particularly in North Sumatra, Riau and South Sumatra,” Ifdhal said.

In general, most human rights violation cases involved land acquisition for the sake of investment in the province, such as for infrastructure development and for industrial areas, he added.

Ifdhal cited the case of 70 residents in Deli Serdang regency who were still holding on to their land at the Kuala Namu airport construction site due to unresolved land disputes.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi appealed to workshop participants in a written message to uphold good governance.

His letter cited four points for execution by regional leaders — developing policy instruments to encourage public participation, strengthening government and civil society partnerships, increasing state budgets to fulfill people’s rights and increasing public awareness.

Central Aceh Regent Nasaruddin agreed on the need for regional leaders to advance human rights enforcement.

He criticized the notion that regional leaders should always be blamed for poor governance and appealed for a balanced assessment of the human rights issue.