D

espite the suicide bombing of a church on Sunday, the House of Representatives says it will proceed with plans to host the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) meeting in Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, this week.

Hidayat Nurwahid, chairman of the House inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, said the House would not accede to terrorists.

“The House has planned to use Solo as a host for a long time. We will not surrender to any terror threats in performing our state tasks,” he told reporters at a press conference here on Monday.

Surakarta was rocked by a suicide bombing of a church on Sunday that killed the bomber and injured dozens of people.

The police previously killed several terrorists and arrested a host of others in Surakarta and the surrounding
areas over the past few years.

Hidayat, accompanied by committee deputy chairman Sidharto Danusubroto from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan), said the APA conference would discuss migrant worker protection when it convened on Thursday.

“The APA conference will be attended by parliamentary delegations from at least from 18 countries, including host Indonesia, and will feature two keynote speakers, former vice president Jusuf Kalla and Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar,” he said.

Sidharto said “receiving” delegations from Hong Kong, Kuwait, Jordan, Malaysia and Singapore had confirmed attendance, while a decision was still pending from Saudi Arabia.

“The ‘receiving’ countries participating in the conference are expected to give good input and encouraged to enliven subcommittee discussions. Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh, as ‘supplier’ countries, can share their experience and seek a resolution to provide protection to migrant workers,” he said.