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Death penalty becoming more popular in Indonesia

Indonesia, one of only 25 countries in the world that still impose capital punishment, has seen 35 people sentenced to death by the courts since the start of the year, according to the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras)

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Mon, October 10, 2016

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Death penalty becoming more popular in Indonesia

I

ndonesia, one of only 25 countries in the world that still impose capital punishment, has seen 35 people sentenced to death by the courts since the start of the year, according to the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras). That number could grow in the coming years, as the country is mulling whether to widen the application of the ultimate penalty.

Marking the 14th World Day Against the Death Penalty, Kontras issued a report that shows legal flaws in the application of capital punishment and in the execution of four death row inmates this year. One bright spot is that some death sentences have been overturned on appeal by the Supreme Court.

“This trend is likely to continue and may even get worse, given the government’s legal policies and plans to amend some laws,” Kontras warned in the report presented at a news conference on Saturday.

Puri Kencana Putri, Kontras coordinator for strategy and mobilization, called the four executions in July “illegal” over flaws in the way they had been carried out. All four legal cases had still been pending, Puri said, and none of the convicts’ relatives had been properly notified about the executions, as required by the law.

“We even have credible reports to suggest that their isolation cells were flooded knee-deep the night they were executed,” Puri said, recalling strong rain that morning at the high-security prison island of Nusakambangan, Central Java, where the executions took place.

A separate recent report looks at how five leading newspapers in the country reported on the execution of death row inmates this year. The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Jakarta in its report criticized the media for not being critical enough in reporting these executions.

The 35 new death sentences this year add to the already long list of people on death row in Indonesia. In December 2014, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ordered that all 64 people on death row should be executed. Eighteen of them have since met their death in three separate rounds of executions, including the latest one in July.

In 2015, 26 people were sentenced to death at courts of first instance, according to the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR).

Kontras said that 25 of the new death sentences this year were meted to drug traffickers. They include 24 non-Indonesians, from China (10), Malaysia (six), Nigeria (four), Taiwan (two), and one each from the US and Pakistan.

The execution of convicts has become something of a hallmark of the presidency of Jokowi, who has declared war on drug trafficking, an offense that carries the ultimate punishment. Fourteen drugtraffickers were executed in 2015, but an earlier plan to execute14 more in July was aborted at the last minute; instead only four were sent to the firing squad.

Until today, the government has not explained the reason for the literally 11th-hour reprieve for the 10. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo insisted their executions were simply being delayed.

Jokowi has publicly rebuked any attempt at intervention by foreign leaders who asked for a stay of executions for their citizens, citing Indonesia’s sovereignty. This did not stop European leaders from telling him to stop the executions when he visited Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium in April.

Indonesia’s appetite for the blood of criminals has not stopped there. In the current debate to reform the penal code, politicians are advocating expanding the use of capital punishment to acts of treason, terrorism and terrorism-related activities, genocide, corruption, endangering flight safety, extortion and intimidation. With reports of sexual abuse against children, some politicians have also asked to add this to the list of crimes punishable by death.

The AJI Jakarta report studied five Jakarta-based newspapers — Kompas, Republika, Tempo, Media Indonesia and The Jakarta Post — on how they reported the executions this year. The report said all but Republika had taken an editorial position opposing the death penalty, but the study found this to be in contradiction to the tone of their reporting, which supported the death penalty.

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