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Communist phobia creeps into penal code
Forget about the global reach of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and look at Indonesia, where growing religious conservatism threatens plurality
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orget about the global reach of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and look at Indonesia, where growing religious conservatism threatens plurality. The country defiantly clings to its old-fashioned wisdom that the most serious threat to its ideology, Pancasila, is still communism.
Still haunted by the unresolved 1965 tragedy, the Indonesian legislative and executive bureaucrats are busy designing tactics to smear the near extinct Marxism-Leninism, while the rest of the world is focusing on combating IS, a terror group that fascinates many home-grown militants.
As if the countless anticommunist laws are never enough, the government has explicitly included Marxism-Leninism provisions in the long-due Criminal Code bill that is expected to be passed into law by the end of the year.
The three new provisions prescribe prison terms of between four and 15 years. Discussions on communism will be allowed only on campus, and academics have to go through state bureaucratic procedures before they can author scholarly works on the topic.
Legal activists have warned that the new stretchy provisions in the future amended Criminal Code are vulnerable to abuse by the political elites and would facilitate New Order-style political repression.
The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) predicts fallouts that would eventually muzzle freedom of speech. As the code will provide a legal umbrella for the common war on communism, ICJR fears rising cases of forcible disbandment of discussions and art performances with communist themes by both the authorities and vigilantes. Such incidents remain common now — almost two decades after the fall of strongman Soeharto, which heralded democracy.
Kontras, a reputable human rights group, suspects that the true motive behind the government’s insistence to include communism in the Criminal Code is that the state does not want to resolve the 1965 tragedy, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, as victims demanded.
Survivors and victims of the 1965 deadly mop-up also fear the return of stigmatization they used to endure.
