Refugees sleeping on the sidewalk in Indonesia (Photo source: social media) What is going on in Indonesia? It has become an inferno for thousands of refugees who have been stranded for years now. Indonesia has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and its supplemental 1967 Protocol which form the basis of rights of refugees and obligations of governments to protect them. The Indonesian government has done nothing but to create a situation that has become a protracted agony and suspense, a humanitarian predicament that has resulted in the loss of dozens of lives. In December 2016, in an attempt to a better humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, the Indonesian president Joko Widodo issued a decree called Presidential Regulation No. 125 , which allows refugees and asylum seekers to stay in Indonesia, not to be forcibly returned to their country of origin. In the Article 1, no 1 it says: Foreign refugee, hereinafter referred to as refugee, shall mean a foreigner who resides wi...
sporadic thoughts and reflections of an anthropology phd student