Oral Intervention Political Participation of Minority Required Protection Not Just Recognition Precondition to effective political participation 2nd United Nations Forum on Minority Issues Geneva, November 12, 2009 Madame Chair, Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would to thank for the opportunity to speak in wonderful forum. My name is Wahyu Effendy. I am the representative of my organization, The Indonesian Anti Discrimination Movement (abbreviated by GANDI) and I am speak for all minorities in Indonesia especially for ethnic and religious minorities groups in Indonesia. Regarding to The Draft Recommendation On Minorities and Effective Political Participation on Part II Recommendation, Sub Part Government and Parliaments which constitue : Government should adopt a policy statement in which they recognize the diversity within their respective societies with respect to race, ethnicity, religion and mother tongue, and which highlights the importance of ensuring that this diversity is indeed reflected in all public institutions and bodies, including national parliaments, the civil service, the police and the judiciary, please let me suggest recommendation for the draft. Addressing the political participation of minority is not enough recognition from government and parliaments. To realize the effective participation, minority need protection and guarantine for their political participation. In many cases in Indonesia, some minority participation was rejected and banned by majority communities in name of religious/ideological reason. For example, this discrimination situation happened by AKBP (like Colonel in Army) Edison Sitorus. When he appointed as the Head of Cirebon (one of district in West Java-Indonesia) Resort Police (October 2006), several Islamic groups such as Islamic Ulemas Council, etc pressure to Local Government and Parliament to rejected of an elected head of Police which a Christian. They argue, because the majority population in the resort area is Muslim, consequently the head of resort police must be Muslim too. In the situation, government always adopted the pressure to reduce the popularity risk of them.