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EDITORIAL: Inconsistent plea for life
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Struggle for life: Indonesian migrant workers deported from Malaysia with their babies and children enter the Indonesian Migrant Workers Placement and Protection post at Pelindo I Dumai Port in Dumai, Riau, on March 8. (Antara/Aswaddy Hamid)
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nother family is grieving over the death of a migrant worker; this time, by execution. Muhammad Zaini Misrin of Madura, East Java, was beheaded on Sunday following a trial in Saudi Arabia in 2008 that found him guilty of murdering his employer, a charge he had denied. Human rights advocates have urged the government to issue a diplomatic protest against the kingdom, against which Indonesia still has a moratorium on sending migrant workers, pending a better guarantee of their welfare.
The NGO Migrant Care pointed out that the Saudi government had not issued a mandatory notice to our Foreign Ministry regarding the execution. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo himself had reportedly pleaded for the life of Zaini, who activists say did not receive his right to an impartial translator.
Nevertheless, a plea for the life of one of our own sounds hollow every time we make it, as we loudly defend our own death penalty. Despite reports of mistrials, several parties continue to claim it is the best deterrent for the worst crimes — terrorism, drug abuse, sexual assault and rape, serial murders, etc. As long as Indonesia has the death penalty, how can we stand up for the life of Indonesians on death row overseas, despite the hard work of our diplomats?
We therefore join those who urge the government to apply a moratorium on the death penalty, while reviewing a move to abolish it. To survivors and families of victims of terrorism, rape and murder, for instance, executions of convicted perpetrators may help bring closure. But have we seen a deterrence against, say, terrorism, since the execution of the “Bali Three” bombers? And in at least two relatively recent cases, weak legal proceedings led to the revocation of one death sentence, but in another, a death row inmate could not be saved.
The Indonesian Ombudsman concluded last year a “maladministration” in the execution of Nigerian Humphrey Jefferson Ejike Eleweke in 2016, which took place while he was still seeking clemency.
In the case of convicted murderer Yusman Telaumbananua, the Supreme Court changed his death sentence to five years’ imprisonment following proof that he was a minor when he was sentenced for multiple murders by a district court in Nias, North Sumatra, in 2013.
Jokowi, who is running for a second term, enjoys support for the mounting executions under his watch, which has already surpassed the 17 executed during his predecessor’s 10-year term. Several more are reportedly planned this year.
Indonesians may be as desperate for peace and order as Filipinos who support their president’s war on drugs, which sparked allegations of extra-judicial murders against President Rodrigo Duterte. But Indonesia is lobbying for a temporary seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), an ambition that looks mighty strange considering the country’s stance on capital punishment.
Sure, UNSC member China also has capital punishment, as do a number of states in the United States. But Indonesia was among the founders of the ASEAN human rights commission, just one of several signs of our efforts toward a civilized society, one that seeks alternatives to justice rather than meting out an eye for an eye.
