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Students face academic sanctions after joining protests
Dozens of high school students have reportedly faced academic sanctions, with some being forced out of school, after participating in recent rallies in several cities to protest against several controversial bills, according to a team of human rights activists and lawyers
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span>Dozens of high school students have reportedly faced academic sanctions, with some being forced out of school, after participating in recent rallies in several cities to protest against several controversial bills, according to a team of human rights activists and lawyers.
Through a center set up specifically to receive public complaints, the activists and lawyers recorded 72 complaints filed by university and senior high school students across the country as of Oct. 11.
The center was opened on Sept. 29, five days after the first rally took place outside the House of Representatives building in Senayan, Central Jakarta.
The center, initiated by law firm AMAR, aimed to record cases of prohibition, intimidation and sanctions faced by students for joining the recent protests dubbed #ReformasiDikorupsi (reform being corrupted) that took place between Sept. 24 and Sept. 30. The complaints, deemed violations of the students’ right to freedom of expression and education, were recorded online and by phone and were then verified by the team.
“There were three senior high school students who [were forced to] drop out, two in Tangerang and one in Bogor. One of them was kicked out of school, while the other two were asked to sign dismissal or school transfer letters,” one of the team’s representatives, human rights lawyer Jane Aileen Tedjaseputra, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
At least 15 cases were recorded of students being suspended, given warning letters and threatened for joining the protests. Jane, however, noted that the number of cases was not equivalent to the number of victims, as each case being reported could involve more than one victim.
The complaints were recorded from across 15 provinces in the country, with 38 reported cases involving 37 universities and the remaining 34 involving 32 senior and vocational high schools.
Complaints filed against universities, a majority being private universities, were commonly on the institutions’ calls to restrict students’ movements, such as through the issuance of circular letters stating that the university did not support the student protests.
The students, both from senior high schools and universities, also complained of intimidation by their educational institutions, such as dismissal threats, fear-mongering over demonstrations, threats that they would earn bad marks on certain subjects and that they would be reported to authorities. There were also reports of physical punishment in the form of beatings administered by school staff members.
“The first step that we’ll take is to send letters requesting dialogue with involved schools so that the students’ dismissal letters could be revoked because what we want to ensure is the students’ rights to education. However, if the schools won’t revoke their decisions and the students want to keep on fighting, then we might take legal measures,” Jane said.
The center also recorded at least three students who complained they were arbitrarily arrested and suffered violence at the hands of the police. Jane cited as an example a student from Bekasi, West Java, who said he had been arrested on his way to Jakarta to join the protest and alleged he was later beaten by police officers and threatened that he would be sexually harassed by jail inmates.
The National Police did not immediately respond to the Post’s requests for comments.
Despite the filed complaints, Jane said it was a challenge in itself to encourage the students to take necessary measures to resolve the cases as her team presumed the students remained afraid of repercussions.
She expressed hope that more students would speak up so that they could push for policy changes at the ministerial level.
“The Children’s Rights Convention regulates children’s freedom to express their opinions. Any restriction can only be done through the law, and not through circular letters, threats or sanctions,” the team said in a statement released on Oct. 14.
Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) commissioner Retno Lisyarti condemned the academic and physical punishments of the student protesters, urging that schools should have resorted to guiding the students instead of ripping away the children’s rights to education and protection.
“Dismissing children from school could potentially cause children to lose their rights to education because other schools would probably refuse to accept those children,” she said.
Education and Culture Ministry secretary-general Didik Suhardi told the Post that he had not received the report and would look further into it.
He said that Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy had issued a circular preventing students of senior high schools and vocational high schools from participating in rallies and for schools to supervise their students to focus on studying.
Didik was referring to a circular issued on Sept. 28, in which the minister also advised heads of regional education agencies to prevent students from taking part in rallies by ramping up supervision in schools and asking parents to ensure their children go to school.
“We haven’t regulated sanctions; we’re handing that over fully to schools and local administrations. Of course the sanctions should be educative,” he said.
Despite the Jakarta Police’s decision earlier this week not to issue protest permits from Tuesday until the second-term inauguration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and vice president-elect Ma’ruf Amin on Sunday, university students returned to Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat in Central Jakarta on Thursday, urging the incumbent to issue a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) to revoke some controversial articles in the newly revised Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law.
The National Association of University Student Executive Bodies' (BEM-SI) coordinator and head of the Jakarta State University BEM, Abdul Basit, said that police officers had tried to persuade him and his friends not to return to the streets by visiting their campuses prior to the Thursday protest.
He added that some had tried to look for him on Oct. 16 in his house in Bekasi, which was currently inhabited by his aunt. The police, however, failed to meet any of his family members, he said.
“Why go to my house? They can just go to my campus. Their visit would only cause my aunt and my parents to be worried and, in turn, they would bar me from joining the protest,” he told the Post.
The head of the Veteran National Development University of Jakarta BEM, Belly Stanio, shared the same experience. He said that he had met with a Depok, West Java Police officer on Oct. 16, during which the officer advised the student to be careful of “terrorists” making use of the student protest.
“They didn’t go to my house but contacted my mother on the evening of Oct. 16, asking if they could come to my house. I told her not to respond,” Belly said. "They shouldn’t have reached out to my parents; it’s my privacy. My parents clearly didn’t know anything [about the protest] and I always tried to respond to them as best as I could."
