The Explanation Of The Director General Of Immigration Regarding Visa-Free Visits Of 159 Countries Has Been Revoked

JAKARTA - Director General (Dirjen) of Immigration of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights Silmy Karim explained that there are three things that need to be done in the context of foreign nationals (WNA), regarding the free revocation of visit visas for 159 countries to enter Indonesia.

"First, it must be done reciprocally or reciprocally in granting visa-free to foreigners. When we go abroad we have to use visas, certain foreign nationals entering Indonesia do not use visas," said Silmy Karim as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, June 21.

Second, he said, there is a selective policy or selective policy that provides benefits in granting visa-free to foreigners. "You have to provide benefits to Indonesia, it is in the law to selective policies," he said.

Finally, he mentioned that there is a security aspect in granting visa-free to foreigners. "This is for our benefit in those three things, resipulation, benefits for Indonesia, then the third is related to security," he said.

However, he said, the possibility of an evaluation of the temporary suspension of the visit visa-free policy (BVK) for 159 countries that meet the three criteria above.

"But later for some countries that do meet these three criteria, we will release them too, we can, there are no problems, we will evaluate them, so that doesn't mean 'No'," he said.

In addition, he said the Directorate General of Immigration made it easy to process visa submissions quickly, despite the temporary suspension of a visit visa-free policy.

"We are fast, now we have submitted the visa for three days, it's easy," he said.

Previously, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that the revocation of free visit visas for 159 countries to enter Indonesia was carried out based on evaluation and consideration of receiving benefits.

"There must be an evaluation. In the past, we opened the total, did the evaluation provide benefits to the state or not? Oh, this is not. This country needs to be opened or closed? It must be evaluated," said Jokowi after reviewing the prices of basic commodities in Bogor Regency, West Java.

The temporary suspension of the visit visa-free policy (BVK) for 159 countries was stipulated through the Decree of the Minister of Law and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia Number M.HH-GR.01.07 of 2023, which was passed on June 7, 2023.

Currently, there are only 10 countries that are subject to free visit visas, namely ASEAN member countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam.

According to information on the official website of the Directorate General of Immigration, Ministry of Law and Human Rights, granting free visit visas has an impact on aspects of state life.

The aspects of state life in question include disturbances in public order and the spread of disease from countries that have not been declared clean or free of certain diseases from the World Health Organization (WHO).