The Bali Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Bali) opened a complaint center yesterday, encouraging university and high school students to file a report should they receive any form of intimidation or punishment from their institutions for participating in the protests that have swept across Indonesia in the last couple of weeks.

 

“By opening this complaint center, we hope university students, especially those who joined the protests, will not be afraid to file a report should they receive threats from anyone. Expressing your rights in public is protected by the law,” said Ni Putu Candra Dewi, a public lawyer at LBH Bali, as quoted by Kumparan.

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Thousands of students have been leading nationwide protests against a number of issues plaguing the world’s third-largest democracy, such as the now-delayed controversial revisions to the country’s criminal code (RKUHP) — which includes articles banning pre-marital sex and making it illegal to insult the president, among others — as well as other pressing issues such as the transnational haze crisis and violence in Papua.

Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir previously called on university students to stop taking to the streets and return to their classes, saying that it was an instruction from President Joko Widodo. He warned last week that rectors could receive disciplinary measures by the ministry should they be found to have encouraged students to partake in the protests. 

Dewi said LBH Bali’s complaint center will remain open for at least one week. She expressed her concern on how Nasir’s suggestion might lead university campuses and rectorates to identify and target students, especially those who have appeared in photos and videos on social media.

In Bali, a female student from Udayana University was reportedly summoned by her rector after a poster she was carrying during #BaliTidakDiam rally on Sep. 24 went viral. 

According to reports, her poster says: “My crotch does not belong to the state, #RejectRKUHP.” 

Udayana University’s executive body of student government (BEM PM) explained in a statement posted on Instagram that the student, along with representatives of the student body, held a meeting with the university’s rectorate on Monday. 

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“The rectorate reprimanded the student protester for the diction she used in the poster,” the statement said. 

Udayana University BEM PM also emphasized that the meeting did not result in any kind of agreement between the student and the rectorate, nor did the university forbade its students from participating in demonstrations. 

Bali’s Education Agency confirmed separately that some students from vocational schools on the island were reprimanded for taking part in the protests, reasoning that the students skipped classes to participate in the rally. 

“We asked them if they knew what the protests were for, and they said no. The students then apologized and said they will not do it again. There are no disciplinary measures, merely guidance to help them realize,” Ketut Sudarma, a secretary at the agency, told Kumparan

There have been two mass protests held in Bali; the first of which took place on Sep. 24, followed with another one on Monday. Protests on the island-province have been largely peaceful, though student protesters in Jakarta and other cities were met with heavy-handed approach by the police on several occasions. At least two students have died and hundreds more injured since last week.

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