Jakarta – Indonesian Centre for Environmental Law (ICEL) Executive Director Raynaldo G. Sembiring is urging the National Police (Polri) to establish a National Police Regulation (Perkap) on the protection of environmental activists.
Sembiring conveyed this after holding a hearing with the Committee for the Acceleration of National Police Reform at the Ministry of State Secretariat in Jakarta on Wednesday November 26.
ICEL was present along with several other environmental organisations such as Greenpeace, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Nusantara Indigenous Community Alliance (AMAN).
"Specifically, the ICEL and Walhi requested that Polri immediately establish a Perkap Polri on the protection of environmental activists, or Anti-SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation]. So hopefully if there is a Perkap Polri we can bring down as much as possible forms of violence and criminalisation against environmental activists", said Sembiring.
Sembiring said that a Perkap is urgent, noting that other institutions already have similar regulations. Aside from this, he emphasised that this is mandated by the Environmental Law, so Polri should already have complied with it.
"And now there's the [recent] Constitutional Court ruling [prohibiting active police officers from holding positions in civilian government agencies], so what are we waiting for? We hope that Polri can do this", he said.
He also asked Polri to change their approach to be more humane when dealing with environmental activists saying that in carrying out their role of providing assistance or advocacy on environmental issues, many often worry about facing repression by the police.
"As indeed we conveyed earlier, don't close your eyes to the many [police officers] who actually become tools or backers for corporations that we suspect are damaging the environment", he said.
Meanwhile, Leonard Simanjuntak from Greenpeace Indonesia highlighted the large number of retired Polri officers who are "backing" corporations. He said this is the root of the problem, leading to potential environmental destruction.
Along with this, he also highlighted the excessive use of violence by police against environmental activists, which has occurred frequently in various regions. He even noted that this has been done during peaceful protests.
"And this is happening in many places in this republic, even in corporations that are clearly violating the law. Yet they have, in quotation marks, protectors in the form of retired Polri officers", he said.
Walhi National Legal and Defence Manager Teo Reffelsen urged the National Police Reform Committee to evaluate and impose a moratorium on all activities by police units providing security at corporations.
Reffelsen emphasised that this is a root cause of the rampant repressive and coercive actions by police officers against the public.
"Then, we also ask the police to stop all excessive use of force in responding to agrarian conflicts, as well as in responding to public protests related to pollution and other environmental issues at companies", he said. (mnf/dal)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Aktivis Lingkungan Desak Polri Terbitkan Perkap Anti-SLAPP".]
