In response, Indonesia, which does not recognize dual citizenship, passed a law making the SBKRI mandatory for all Chinese-Indonesians if they wanted to obtain legal documents.
The chairwoman of antidiscrimination watchdog Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa, Esther Yusuf Purba, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. “The new law will only slightly reduce discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians. Theoretically, they no longer need an SBKRI (Indonesian citizenship certificate) to be recognized as Indonesian citizens, but what happens in reality is different”….
She said “the new law did not provide any assurances that discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians would end in the near term. For them, (discrimination) is simply the consequence of being different. They will still have to bear the burden of prejudice from some people who think that all Chinese-Indonesians are well-off and therefore it is ‘justifiable’ to extort them”….
The government has promised to put an end to any form of discrimination against minorities, but it hasn’t even set up ways to dilute the segregation in society, which is actually the root of the problem....
Source: Jakarta Post, 18 Juli 2006
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