A controversial law critics say would weaken Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency came into effect Thursday after it sparked nationwide protests that left at least three students dead and scores injured.
The new bill was introduced as the Southeast Asian nation is on high alert ahead of President Joko Widodo’s second-term inauguration Sunday, after Islamic State-linked militants tried to assassinate a government minister.
Under tight security in the capital Jakarta on Thursday, about a hundred students protested against Widodo not rolling back the law after he earlier pledged to consider a revision.
The legislation will see the appointment of a board to oversee Indonesia’s graft-busting agency — known as the KPK — and limits its ability to wire-tap corruption suspects in the graft-riddled nation.
“The new law will make it difficult to arrest big fish,” said Syamsuddin Haris, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
“If Widodo doesn’t stop or annul the law, then public confidence in him is going to drop…It would show he is a prisoner of the oligarchy. It’ll kill his image as a man of the people.”
A recent survey by pollster Lembaga Survey Indonesia found 70 percent of respondents thought the new law would weaken the agency.
Weeks of demonstrations that started in September were also fuelled by a proposed bill that included dozens of legal changes — from criminalising pre-marital sex and restricting contraceptive sales, to making it illegal to insult the president and toughening the Muslim-majority country’s blasphemy law.
Those changes were delayed after the backlash.
The countrywide protests were among Indonesia’s biggest student rallies since mass street demonstrations in 1998 toppled the Suharto dictatorship. Three students die in the unrest.
Widodo’s inauguration on Sunday comes just over a week after his chief security minister was stabbed in an unrelated attack by two IS-linked militants, who were arrested at the scene.
On Thursday, police said 40 suspected militants had been arrested in a nationwide dragnet following the attack last week on Security Minister Wiranto, a former general who goes by one name. The 72-year-old is recovering in hospital.
 
– AFP

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

Public Transport Council to begin its 2016 fare review exercise

,Public Transport Council (PTC) has announced in a media statement on 13…

Singaporean spy for Chinese intelligence has his PhD enrollment at NUS terminated

Dickson Yeo Jun Wei, the Singaporean charged for working as a China…

武汉疫情严峻 省委、市委书记换将

自去年底至今,中国武汉传出新型冠状病毒疫情,且如今已传播其他国家。 截至2月13日上午,根据湖北卫健委最新通报,该省确诊病例与死亡病例中,武汉仍居首位,武汉市确诊新增13436例,全省死亡病例新增242例,其中武汉就占216例。 相信是该地疫情严重引起高层不满和民怨,根据新华网报导,“中央对湖北省委主要负责同志职务进行了调整”,原湖北省委书记蒋超良被撤,该由上海市长应勇上任。 至于原湖北省委副书记、武汉市委书记马国强,也被革职,改由王忠林担任。 报导称湖北省今日召开领导干部会议,调整是中央从大局出发,根据疫情防控工作需要和湖北省领导班子实际,经慎重考虑决定。 包括蒋超良、省长王晓东和武汉市长周先旺,都被指是隐瞒武汉肺炎疫情的祸首。 此前武汉市长周先旺接受央视采访,还直指疫情披露不及时,中央也有责任。

诈骗网站冒用人力部长杨莉明照片 套取用户信用卡与银行信息

诈骗网站冒用人力部长杨莉明照片,误导用户并索取信用卡与银行信息。 杨莉明昨日(5月15日)于脸书发文澄清,该诈骗网站错误引述她的话,误导用户注册网路平台,要求他们提供信用卡或银行信息以进行存款活动。 她也描述,该网站内容充斥“高度欺骗性与误导性”内容,其中内容涵盖雇佣法令的陈述,以获取用户信任。 网站误导称杨莉明开设网络平台 她也澄清诈骗网站内容中提及有关她将开设网路平台之说法是“完全错误的”。 杨莉明提醒民众应提高警惕,避免提供任何财务与个人资料予不明管道。她也表示,网站有可能是在新加坡境外经营。 “故意提供假消息是非常严重的犯罪行为,以此为例,有人可能因相信错误信息而陷入财务损失。”她说道。