UI Rector Defends Decision to Grant Degree to Saudi King

BOGOR, KOMPAS.com - University of Indonesia (UI) Rector Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri defended his decision to award an honorary degree to Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, saying the king was quite qualified to receive the title.

There were many considerations underlying the university’s decision to award the degree to the Saudi King, said Gumilar on Friday. Among the criteria were the Saudi king’s role in building peace in the Middle East, developing interfaith dialogs and promoting science and technology as well as his care for people living in disaster-hit regions such as Aceh and many areas in Africa, he said.

He asked the public not to link the award to politics. "It (the awarding of the honorary degree) lies in the academic domain, not the political domain."

Over the past four years, UI granted honorary degrees to at least nine figures consisting of three domestic and six foreign figures. He stated the university was considering to grant honorary degrees to other figures. Some UI lecturers and non-governmental organization activists have protested the awarding of the honorary degree to the Saudi King.

"The presentation of the award is very embarrassing and degrading to the Indonesian nation. Moreover, the award was presented not at the UI campus but in Saudi Arabia," Thamrin Amal Tamagola, a lecturer at the university’s department of social and political sciences, said when reading out the protest statement at the parliament building in Jakarta on August 26.

Thamrin said the UI rector’s decision to give the honorary degree to the Saudi King was never discussed before with the board of professors. "The rector has embarrassed UI and the Indonesian nation with his action," he said.