Your comments on the order given by President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to execute five death-row drug trafficking convicts, a move the government considers as a firm act to uphold the law:

Indonesia needs to improve its dreadful, corruption-riddled court system before it even considers using the death penalty. While standards of proof and evidence are so low, and so many judges have been caught accepting bribes, the judiciary will undoubtedly be held in suspicion.

The Indonesian court system lacks integrity, which means that it does not have the trust required to make a death penalty justifiable.

Lasem Benny

Out of all the places to start, why in the world start with the enforcement of capital punishment? Thank you Jokowi for acting on your promise, but one could engage in a pages-long debate about the moral correctness of the death penalty, especially in a country where rule of law is extremely lax to begin with.

In other words, there are certainly other criminals, like those who commit corruption, rape, or homicide, that deserve definitive justice.

Woah H.

Looking at the bigger picture, at least Jokowi is making a decision rather than granting remission or clemency.

Those who oppose the death penalty should instead ask the House of Representatives to review the laws pertaining to offences in which the death penalty is meted out.

Ponders

Perhaps now is the time for Indonesia to review its law on the death penalty and play a leading role in this question in Asia, in the Muslim World, and in some developed countries, like the US, where so many innocents have been condemned and killed after the police and judiciary made mistakes, as we all sometimes do.

Jela Paris

The system can simply never work unless everybody is prosecuted and sentenced on the same basis.

This is why the man who murdered a human rights activist on a '€œpremeditated basis'€ was released after serving only eight years of his sentence.

Bay V.

If we are going to get tough on drugs and start up capital punishment again, let'€™s attack the big boys first: the leaders of drug rings. The corrupt police and prison staff who supply drugs and make a mockery of the rule of law. They are at the core of the whole nasty trade. Take them out and the trade drops and our people are safer.

However, getting tough on the carriers we catch at the airport, even shooting them, does nothing. There are plenty more desperate and gullible people ready to step in and become the next victim of the evil drug barons.

Deedee S.

Too long laws have laws not been enforced.

Hadi
Surabaya

This is an appropriate measure as the convicts won'€™t actually stop carrying out their business activities, even from within prison walls. Aside from the execution of the death-row convicts, it is high time to properly arrange the appropriate compensation for prison officials so that they are not easily accept bribes.

Moeljono
Jakarta

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