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uman rights groups have urged President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to drop a plan that would give the Indonesian Military (TNI) authority to get involved in security matters and civilian functions.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said that passing the decree would take the country back to the authoritarian New Order Era, when the TNI had supremacy over civilians.

'€œIf the President approves the decree, the country will gradually lose its democracy. Civilians will feel insecure because they will no longer have freedom to express their criticism of the government,'€ said Mufti Makarim, a researcher from Kontras who is also a military expert.

He said that several problematic articles in the draft, which would allow the TNI to carry out civilian functions and security affairs, should be subject to scrutiny.

Article 4 in the draft, for example, stipulates that the TNI is the state'€™s instrument for defense and security affairs, that it is equal to a ministry and that it is directly under the President.

If the decree was approved, the TNI would no longer be under the coordination of the Defense Ministry and would be on equal footing with the National Police and ministries.

Mufti said that the stipulation contradicted Article 3 of Law No. 34/2004 on the TNI, which regulates that the TNI is under the command of the Defense Ministry in defense policy and strategy. It would also violate Article 5 of the law, which authorizes the TNI to deal with defense affairs only.

Article 7 in the draft is equally problematic, stipulating that the TNI would have authority to deal with crimes that are supposedly handled by the National Police, such as terrorism and drug-related crimes. The TNI would also have authority to help local administrations in protecting Indonesian citizens overseas.

'€œIt will be dangerous. The TNI will be able to arbitrarily use weapons to shoot criminals dead, which is in contradiction with the police'€™s mechanism where shooting to death is the last option,'€ Mufti said.

Wahyudi Djafar, a senior researcher at the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), said the decree would also violate Article 30 of the Constitution, which allows the TNI to deal only with defense, while security matters are in the hands of the National Police.

The Constitution, he said, could not be amended with a presidential decree.

'€œJokowi is the first civilian elected to be president through a democratic general election. But he surprisingly wants to bring back military supremacy over civilians,'€ Wahyudi said.

He said that Jokowi should invite the public to participate more in the decision-making process and stop listening to parties in the governance that had certain political interests.

Human rights watchdog Imparsial'€™s executive director Poengky Indarti said that the country'€™s situation might become worse than it was in the authoritarian era if the decree was approved.

Under Soeharto'€™s dictatorship, she said, the TNI, then known as the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI), could have control in politics and civilian affairs without any legal basis.

'€œSo, we can imagine how it would be if the TNI was backed by a legal basis,'€ Poengky said.

She said that to stop the decree from being implemented, if the President signed it, human rights groups in the country would file a judicial review at the Constitutional Court.

'€œWe really want the President to review it first with all parties for the sake of civilians,'€ she said. (foy)