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Beware, death penalty is an addictive policy

Indonesia was steadfast in preserving the death penalty as an effective measure to deal with drug problems. This stance marks not only a setback in Indonesia’s commitment to human rights, but also a flawed reasoning to protect the country from drug trafficking. 

Indonesian academics are among those appealing for evidence-based policymaking and the priority for public health in addressing drug problems, as they wrote in the Lancet medical journal last year. However, the current government has decided to start a new wave of executions of death row convicts, mostly drug traffickers. 

Asmin Fransiska (The Jakarta Post)
Giessen
Wed, June 29, 2016

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Beware, death penalty is an addictive policy Activists from a migrant workers community hold a candlelit prayer meeting displaying posters of condemned Filipina Mary Jane Veloso in front of the State Palace in Jakarta last year, demanding the government abolish the death penalty. (TEMPO/Imam Sukamto)

T

he World Health Organization defines addiction or dependency as a complex health condition that often requires long-term treatment and care. Sadly, that is the case with Indonesia’s policy on drug crimes.

To address the global problem of drugs, world leaders and activists gathered on April 19-21 at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in New York. Most countries represented moved from criminalization to decriminalization for personal possession or use. Some opted to regulate drug markets for certain types of drugs, mostly marijuana. Almost all delegates from the EU, Latin America, UN organizations and the special rapporteurs against torture and the right to health agreed to abolish the death penalty for drug offenders.

However, Indonesia was steadfast in preserving the death penalty as an effective measure to deal with drug problems. This stance marks not only a setback in Indonesia’s commitment to human rights, but also a flawed reasoning to protect the country from drug trafficking. 

Indonesian academics are among those appealing for evidence-based policymaking and the priority for public health in addressing drug problems, as they wrote in the Lancet medical journal last year. However, the current government has decided to start a new wave of executions of death row convicts, mostly drug traffickers. 

The state indeed needs strong efforts in law enforcement and public health to reduce the negative consequences of drug trafficking. However, claiming that waging a war on drugs through executions is a powerful strategy to eliminate drug trafficking is even more dangerous. The excessive use of executions only demonstrates the country’s failure to control drug problems. 

National Narcotics Agency (BNN) chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso admitted the failure, saying that despite the executions, the number of drug use cases increased from 4.2 million in June 2015 to 5.9 million in November 2015. 

The UN has called for the abolition of the death penalty for drug offenses due to the lack of a threshold to fulfill the “serious crime” category, based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

From 1979 to 2008 Indonesia executed at least 60 convicts, mostly convicted murderers and terrorists. Since 2014, executions were performed on drug convicts based on the drug emergency narrative. Death sentences have been on the rise without a guarantee of when and how this policy will be evaluated objectively and stopped if the policy goes wrong. 

The war on drugs is an abstract reason for a state to deal with real problems in society where corruption, poverty, racism and marginalization of its own people are rampant. Drug trafficking may not disappear, but the crimes should be governed in an orderly way. 

The disproportionate use of the death penalty requires scrutiny. In previous death sentences such as for Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines, Rodrigo Gularte of Brazil and Indonesian Zainal Abidin, there was substantive evidence to show that capital punishment undermines the rule of law. Drug mules are at the highest risk under Indonesia’s death penalty policy, rather than the drug kingpins.

Human rights outline principles, standards and guidelines to create a clear measure for a state to be able to fulfill its objectives. However, human rights are absent in Indonesia’s drug policy framework. We have lost the capability to assess the real situation concerning drug abuse and thus have reacted irresponsibly. 

Having assessed the characteristics of dependency, we could assume that Indonesia has faced the serious problem of failing to tackle drug offenses. The death penalty is seen as a quick fix and we have become addicted to it.

A better way to address addiction is proper and appropriate treatment. We can begin the treatment by setting sufficient guidelines and patiently educating ourselves to become aware of our own problems. We need to reform our drug policies and laws and transform them into scientific-based and proper evidence-based ones. In so doing we can capture the real underlying problems of drug offenses. 

The treatment needs to be tested, assessed and renewed regularly in order to adequately represent reality. 

Above all, respecting human rights is the key to achieving good results. Whatever drug policy approach we choose, human rights should be the mirror for us to set standards and principles. 

Hopefully, we can stop the addiction to the death penalty in the long run. 

 

***

The writer is a senior lecturer in human rights at Atma Jaya Catholic University’s School of Law in Jakarta and a PhD researcher at Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany.

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