Jusuf Kalla Fails to Understand Human Rights Questions, Many Critics

Rakyat Utama. The speech of Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday  afternoon showed that he did not understand anything about Human Rights. He said that the state was also a victim of human rights violations. "Government officials were also violated by their rights. Of course we realize that those who violate human rights are certainly not soldiers. But on the contrary, an anti-government society that violates human rights," JK said.

"The government is not only a position always accused of violating human rights, but also of victims. This is certainly a common understanding," he added.
The statement that JK did not understand anything about human rights, one of them came out of the mouth of the Chairman of the Advocacy Division of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) Muhammad Isnur. He claimed to be "surprised" by JK's statement.

Isnur said there were three things that could be concluded from the statement. First, JK did not understand the 1945 Constitution properly.
"It is clear that the Vice President did not read the constitution so far and all its derivatives, including the Human Rights Law and international ratifications related to human rights," Isnur said on Tuesday night.

It is clearly written in the constitution that those given the mandate to fulfill and respect the human rights of every citizen are the government, not vice versa.
"All the problems related to human rights, which are billed to the government and the state. There is no story, instead the government ventured. Mr. JK really did not read it all. That was a blunder at all," said Isnur.

Second, said Isnur, JK's talk would embarrass the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when representing Indonesia when dealing with international human rights councils. "What would happen if the words were read by international diplomats?" he said.

Finally, Kalla's statement to Isnur explained why until now the resolution of cases of human rights violations had taken place.

"It means that all this time they consider themselves to be victims of human rights. It is appropriate that we have not been ignored so far," said Isnur.

Beka Ulung Hapsari, Komnas HAM Commissioner also considered the same. According to him, what Jusuf Kalla said was not right at all because human rights were not attached to the state or government, but to each individual.

"The state cannot be violated by human rights. The state has been protected by all security forces and law enforcers, by policies. Moreover, the duty of the state is to protect the human rights of its citizens," Beka said when contacted on Tuesday night.