JakartaPost-Jan 16, 2023
Rights activists are calling on Indonesia, which has received over 600 Rohingya refugees in recent weeks, to make use of its ASEAN chairmanship this year to address the issue. Executive director Atika Yuanita Paraswaty of SUAKA, or the Indonesian Civil Society Association for Refugee Rights Protection, said that it should be lauded that the people of Aceh had been relatively welcoming to the Rohingya refugees who had landed in the province. She said that while a 2016 presidential regulation facilitated Indonesia’s treatment of refugee arrivals, more needed to be done. “We appreciate that measure, but unfortunately there are no [provisions] in the regulation that mention fulfilling the rights of refugees while they are here,” Atika said on Friday. She noted that although the government had not ratified the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention, it had ratified a raft of international human rights conventions that meant Jakarta was still obligated to uphold refugee rights. Atika said Indonesia needed to intensify diplomatic efforts with neighboring countries, especially Myanmar and other ASEAN states, to help the Rohingya further by minimizing their persecution. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Indonesia had received a total of 644 Rohingya refugees who arrived in five boats on Nov. 15 and 16, Dec. 25 and 26 and on Jan. 8. UNHCR Indonesia representative Ann Maymann expressed hope that Indonesia would highlight the Rohingya situation and open discussions on the issue in ASEAN as its current chair. “It’s important to put the issue on the table because many think that if we don’t talk about it, it will disappear. But it will not,” Maymann said on Friday. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/01/16/activists-demand-indonesia-put-rohingya-in-asean-spotlight.html.
