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University mining grants meant to stifle dissent: Activists

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
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Fri, January 24, 2025

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University mining grants meant to stifle dissent: Activists Heavy vehicles operate in a coal mine near Sumber Batu village in Meureubo district, West Aceh regency, Aceh, on May 24, 2024. (Antara/Syifa Yulinnas)

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House of Representatives’ proposal to grant universities mineral and coal mining concessions seeks to make the institutions complicit in environmentally and socially harmful mining practices and stifle dissent from academics, activists say.

Indonesian Climate Justice Literacy founder Firdaus Cahyadi said on Friday that higher education institutions that accepted mining concessions would be more likely to promote discourse that justified or normalized destructive mining practices.

The House of Representatives Legislation Body (Baleg) held a series of meetings in Jakarta on Monday, as lawmakers were on an official recess, to discuss a revision to Law No. 4/2009 on minerals and coal. 

The lawmakers discussed a stipulation that would make higher education institutions of at least B-level accreditation eligible to receive expedited mining licenses.

In May of last year, then-president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo issued a regulation permitting business entities owned by religious organizations to receive expedited mining licenses “to improve the people’s welfare”.

"The political elites who are granting mining concessions to religious organizations and universities seem to be giving them to these two [types of] institutions, which are symbols of morality and knowledge, to fool the public about mining’s destructive power,” Firdaus went on to say, as quoted by Kompas.

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