Mass organizations bill still alive at House

Margareth S. Aritonang, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Sat, April 13 2013, 10:23 AM

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We want freedom!: Members of the Muhammadiyah Students Association rallied against the mass organization bill in front of the House of Representatives building on Friday. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)


The House of Representatives and the government will continue deliberating the contentious mass organization bill despite protests from civil society groups.

The House’s plenary session on Friday decided to postpone the approval of the bill, bowing to demands from several Islamic groups, including Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, which say the bill, if enacted, would restrict their activities.

“We, leaders of the House, have asked lawmakers from the special committee discussing the bill to arrange further discussions with the country’s mass organizations, especially the big ones such as Nahdatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, for their input,” House of Representatives speaker Marzuki Alie said.

The lawmakers and the government refused to bow to public demand that they drop the bill, saying that they planned to pass it into law in the next sitting session.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi said the bill should be passed into law because the existing law was outdated and even more repressive than the much-decried bill.

“We’ve discussed the bill for nearly two years, but it is obviously far from satisfying for the majority of the people, even though we’ve made some changes,” the minister said on the sidelines of the plenary. “Therefore, we will continue discussion with the country’s existing mass groups to raise suggestions as well as to ensure them that the bill aims not to restrict their freedom of association.”

Several Islamic groups, including Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), which promotes the creation of a trans-national caliphate, opposed the bill as they believed it would be used by the government to force them to recognize Pancasila as their core ideology. They said the bill would bring back the ghost of Soeharto, who cracked down on Islamic organizations that refused to accept Pancasila as their sole ideology.

Gamawan said the Islamists have got it wrong. The existing law on mass organizations, he said, was the one that is repressive as it only recognized organizations that were based on Pancasila.

“This law is still in effect unless we amend or revoke it,” he said.

He said the opposition to the bill was based on a misunderstanding and that he was upbeat the bill would be endorsed in the next sitting session when people understand the purpose of the bill’s enactment. “We will use the time to further talk about this, especially with those groups that continuously reject the endorsement, including the Muhammadiyah. We are confident that they will understand when they get the whole picture,” he said.

Committee member Michael Wattimena said the committee needed more time to discuss the bill with the public.

“We’ve decided to delay the endorsement in order to get more feedback from the public to make the bill suit their needs,” he said. “We will use the one month recess to assess for more empowering aspirations so that we can include them in the draft as soon as we return to the deliberation [in Mid May].”

The bill initially drew protests from human rights activists, who called it draconian and a threat to democracy. The lawmakers, however, ignored the protest.

Their stance changed when the Islamic groups voiced their opposition to the bill.

Muhammadiyah, the country’s second largest Islamic organization, is one of the staunchest critics of the bill. It has threatened to file a judicial review against the bill if the House endorses it.

On Friday, members of the Muhammadiyah Youth and Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM) rallied in front of the House demanding the lawmakers and the government drop the bill.

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