Students Reject Arbitrary, Baseless Ban on Communist Literature
17 May 2016 13:36 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-A spokesperson for the Indonesian University Students' Association, Roy Thaniago calls on the government to stop the ban on discussions, film screening, theatrical production, and the seizure of books about communism - stating that such actions are 'baseless' and 'arbitrary'.
"Such practices are against the law, and completely ignores the rights of Indonesian citizens, as outlined in the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia," said Roy through a press release dated Tuesday, May 17, 2016.
Roy said that the seizure of literatures that are considered as having 'communistic-tendencies' by the state is basically a violation of the right on an individual to access knowledge - an anti-intellectual movement that could eventually be perceived as a form of state-terrorism to its own citizens.
Furthermore, continued Roy, the ban on the distribution and attributes that contain references to the ideology of communism creates a sense of fear among Indonesian citizens, which - in addition as a violation to the individual's freedom of speech - might cause an intellectual deadlock that would ultimately lead to national stagnation.
As such, the Association calls on the government to respect its own constitution - specifically, Clause 28F of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (UUD 1945) on Freedom of the Freedom of Speech, and will continue to push President Joko Widodo to perform his mandate to to protect the rights of Indonesian citizens to live free from fear of terror in pursuing greater knowledge.
DANANG FIRMANTO