P

eople with disabilities and differently abled people threatened on Wednesday to take legal action against Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh over a discriminatory regulation.

The deputy chairman the Union of Indonesian Disabled People, Mahfud Fasa, said they would sue the minister at the Jakarta State Administrative Court.

'€œThe 1945 Constitution and the law on the national education system guarantee the right to education to every citizen, without exception,'€ Mahfud said in a rally in front of the ministry building in Jakarta.

During the demonstration, dozens of disabled people grouped in 10 organizations demanded that the minister repeal a regulation on enrollment to state universities stipulating that applicants should not be deaf, blind, mute, physically disabled or color blind.

'€œWe give the minister seven days to respond to our demand or we will take him to court,'€ Mahfud said.

Tigor Hutapea, a Jakarta Legal Aid lawyer, said seven days were enough for the minister to respond to the demand, otherwise he would be declared a hindrance to full access to education.

Separately, 35 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and organizations of people with disabilities sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, demanding that the government eliminate discriminative university enrollment requirements.

'€œThe requirements are unconstitutional, violate human rights and are against the principles of the law,'€ said Joni Yulianto, who represented the Alliance of Difable Communities, at the Yogyakarta Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University (UIN) campus on Wednesday.

The protest was in response to the 62 state universities across the country that do not allow people with disabilities to enroll for particular study programs.

Joni said that almost 70 percent of the available study programs banned disabled people from enrolling.

'€œWe will report this to the United Nations. We are preparing for a 2014 shadow report for the implementation of the UNCRPD, which Indonesia has ratified,'€ Joni said, referring to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Joni, who is also director of the Difable Advocacy and Integration Forum (Sigab), added that if the government failed to respond to the demand, it would face a lawsuit.

UIN Sunan Kalijaga declared that it had overlooked all the stipulations that banned people with disabilities from enrolling at the university.

'€œWe held a meeting with the rector and deans and agreed to overlook all the requirements banning difables [differently abled people] from enrolling at UIN Sunan Kalijaga,'€ said UIN lecturer Ro'€™fah, who is also founder of the university'€™s disabled persons service center.

In Yogyakarta, Gadjah Mada University spokesperson Wiwit Wijayanti similarly said that the university was deliberating requirements for students with disabilities. She said the review was expected to be completed by the end of this week.

'€œNot all the requirements will be overlooked but the rules will be made looser,'€ she said, adding that a number of study programs would maintain the requirements. (gda)