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public hearing on a draft bylaw on land ownership of the Yogyakarta customary sultanate and Pakualaman principality on Monday turned ugly after those opposing the draft, which could grant the sultanate power to control large areas of land, became involved in fierce arguments with the its supporters.

Controversy surrounding the draft, which has centered on the potential “violation” of people’s rights to own land in Yogyakarta, has triggered intense debates among Yogyakartans.

Critics said the planned bylaw would allow the sultanate and the principality to own vast plots of land, just like in the colonial era.

“The bylaw draft has to be rejected because it will revive the 1918 colonial regulation on land for the sultanate and the Pakualaman principality,” Suparyanto, from anti discrimination organization Granad, told the hearing held at the provincial legislative council, which has been deliberating the draft.

He reiterated that the draft, which was proposed by the provincial administration, could violate a 1983 bylaw on the implementation of the 1960 Agrarian Law in Yogyakarta. The law, he said, should effectively override any agrarian regulations in the province.

Supporters said the draft was a mandate of the law on Yogyakarta’s special status.

However, Sugiarto from the Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute highlighted the increasing agrarian conflicts following the endorsement of the law in 2012.

As the opposers spoke before the hearing, supporters of the draft bylaw, who mostly came from groups that had strongly encouraged the Yogyakarta Special Status Law, yelled, demanding that they stop talking.

“We are ready to guard the draft of the bylaw and make sure that it is endorsed by the legislative council this year,” Totok Sudarwoto of the joint secretariat on Yogyakarta special status said.

Yogyakarta Spatial Planning and Land Agency’s head Hananto Hadi Purnomo denied that the Yogyakarta Special Status Law contradicted the Agrarian Law.

Meanwhile, Condrokirono, a royal family member who represented the sultanate in the hearing, said the sultanate would never try to make the Yogyakartan people miserable. He said the conflict had been mainly caused by a discrepancy between the land used by the people and the information in the sultanate’s record.

Councilor Rendradi Suprihandoko, who chaired the special committee on the draft bylaw, suggested that those who disagreed with Yogyakarta’s Special Status Law should file a judicial review to challenge the law at the Constitutional Court.