Reasons Why Rejection Of Civil Emergency Discourse Flows So Much

President Joko Widodo (Instagram / @ jokowi)

JAKARTA - Resistance surfaced following the government's move to establish a Health Emergency Status. It's nothing, the government has slipped the Civil Emergency option in the back if procedures under Health Emergency Status don't work. This discourse was completely rejected. The evidence can be traced from the results of social media analysis and online news via Netray.

According to our observations on the social media platform Twitter, the wave of rejection summed up the narrative of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi's) authoritarian rule. Then, why did the Civil Emergency get so strongly resisted?

The rejection came after Jokowi made this discourse at the Limited Meeting of the COVID-19 Task Force Report on Monday, March 30. Jokowi asked ministries or related parties to make a Large-Scale Social Restriction (PSBB) policy with Health Quarantine. He also added that if the situation continued to deteriorate, it could lead to a Civil Emergency policy.

The news about the determination of the Civil Emergency was sticking out in the mainstream media. According to Netray's observation, there were at least 231 articles from 54 different media portals covering the topic as of March 30. Nearly all of the directions for the discussion were directed at the government domain, amounting to 93 percent, while only five percent focused on the health sector.

Using Netray's analytical tools, on social media Twitter there were 53 thousand tweets that discussed the topic of "civil emergency". On Twitter, this topic became increasingly prominent after the Indonesian Presidential Spokesperson, Fadjroel Rachman reiterated the President's statement regarding the policy of large-scale social restrictions and civil emergencies. Many people question the term civil emergency, and what its urgency is. Citizens consider the policies issued by the government to be unclear.

Capture the Netray page screen

The account owner @ vickyverry_87, for example. He questioned what was the difference between civil emergency and military emergency, while what was the difference between civil emergency and lockdown. "What is the easy language of government policy?" write the account.

The owner of the @ ekowinanto57 account also expressed the same thing. He urged the government not to make people stagger, but rather, he hoped that the government "... makes policies that (can) make the people about it," he wrote.

Shortly after getting a lot of questions from netizens, Fajroel then deleted the previous tweet and made a new tweet by adding a statement that the discourse of declaring a civil emergency would be applied if things got worse.

However, the deletion of the tweet did not reduce the rejection reaction from netizens. They are of the opinion that Civil Emergency does not need to be implemented in Indonesia. Even some netizens have criticized the policy as an attempt by the government to escape from its responsibility and obligation to the people in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of fulfilling the responsibilities mandated by Law Number 6 of 2018 concerning Health Quarantine, the government has even strengthened its power with the discourse of determining a civil emergency. As a result, according to Netray's analysis, out of 30,400 tweets with the tag #tolakdaruratsipil, 13,200 were observed using negative arguments. Meanwhile, the total impressions from that hashtag reached 49,700.

Why was it rejected?

Civil Emergency Status as stipulated in Government Regulation in Lieu of Legislation (Perppu) Number 23 of 1959 concerning State of Danger, can be said to be a situation in which all or part of the country's territory is in a state of danger with the level of a civil emergency or a military emergency or state of war.

To determine the status of a civil emergency there must be a certain urgency, as explained in article 1 paragraph 1 and article 1 paragraph 2. due to natural disasters, so it is feared that normal equipment cannot be overcome.

Then, secondly, civil emergency occurs when there is war or the danger of war or there is a fear of rape on the territory of the country in any way. The reason why netizens rejected the Civil Emergency Status on Twitter were affirmed by the Director of the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBHM) Ricky Gunawan, who is part of the Civil Society Coalition which is driven by many institutions.

Ricky firmly rejects the discourse on establishing a Civil Emergency Status because none of the reasons given by the Perppu No. 23/1959 are fulfilled. "The disasters that occur are not natural disasters and the life of the country is not in danger. The lives of the Indonesian people are in danger," he said in a written statement sent to VOI, Wednesday, April 1.

In line with the perception circulating on Twitter social media, Ricky explained, when the government implemented a Civil Emergency, the state was released from its legal obligations to guarantee the basic rights of the people. It is different if the government issues a Disaster determination and a Public Health Emergency stipulation, where the state is bound by a legal obligation to ensure the availability of the necessary resources.

Then, the next reason why the determination of this Civil Emergency should be rejected is because it actually endangers the safety and health of citizens. "This action actually places those arrested in groups of people and does not impose physical distancing restrictions," said Ricky.

It would be better if, Ricky suggested, in this emergency situation of COVID-19, the government needs to put forward public health experts and practitioners as the core team to suppress the distribution of the corona virus which has continued to spread among residents, not deploy more officers.

"Public health experts and medical teams have expertise in handling COVID-19 in accordance with the principles of infection prevention and control in the community," explained Ricky. "Make public health experts as the top leadership in handling Covid-19 by involving the widest possible range of related sectors and regions," he added.