F

or Merri Utami, death might feel closer every day.

The 43-year-old single mother from Sukoharjo, Central Java, is a drug convict on death row. She took a job in Taiwan in 2000 to support her two children, one of whom had been diagnosed with a heart condition.

Merri’s son passed away in 2003 after suffering a heart attack while Merry was behind bars at the Tangerang Women’s prison in Banten, said her lawyer, Arinta Dea Dini Singgih from the Jakarta-based Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat).

It all started on Oct. 31, 2001 when she was arrested at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang after authorities found a bag containing 1.1 kilograms of heroin on her. She was later found guilty and sentenced to death at the Tangerang District Court.

Arinta said Merry had swore she was not aware of the contents of the bag, which had been given to her by a friend of her boyfriend.

The lawyer claimed Merry had experienced various forms of violence by authorities after her arrest. Investigators forced her to admit to the crime, Arinta added.

Merry’s case review request filed with the Supreme Court was rejected on March 14, 2016. She was moved to Nusakambangan prison in Cilacap, Central Java, on July 24, 2016.

Merry was immediately put on the list of 14 death row inmates to be executed in 2016.

According to Arinta, in the early hours of July 29, 2016, execution day, Merry could hear the sound of sliding doors being opened. She believed it was time for the warden to pick up the inmates to face their executions.

“She said she heard sliding doors open and close four times, as four people had been picked up for their executions,” Arinta added.

Merri prayed for 24 hours nonstop. Death felt near as she knew she could be next, Arinta said.

That day, the firing squad executed four drug convicts: Indonesian Freddy Budiman and Senegalese Seck Osmane, as well as Nigerians Michael Titus and Humphrey Jefferson.

The government has not decided when the 10 other convicts, including Merri, will be executed.

Merry is waiting for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision on her clemency request.

The country’s prisons housed 165 death row inmates, 90 of whom had been found guilty in murder cases, 73 in drug cases and two for terrorism.

In the last five years, ASEAN recorded 2,165 death row inmates, 40 of whom had been executed. Indonesia executed the most, 19 convicts.

One of the founders of the Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in ASEAN (CADPA), Rafendi Djamin, said a public opinion survey had been conducted in 2016 in three ASEAN countries, namely Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, where the death penalty was still applied. The survey suggest that more than 75 percent of the population of the three countries combined supported the death penalty. “They believe that death penalty will lead to a better society,” he said recently.

In ASEAN, capital punishment has been abolished only in Cambodia and the Philippines.

“But the Philippines and Indonesia have started a violent war on drugs that characterized by the use of excessive force and massive human rights violations,” he added.

A survey by Human Rights Watch Group (HRWG) also showed that 85 percent of Indonesian respondents said they supported the death penalty.

“The public believes the death penalty is fair punishment that makes them feel safer,” HRWG’s ASEAN program manager, Daniel Awigra, said.

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte’s shoot-on-sight policy has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 drug suspects shot during police raids.

In Indonesia, in 2017 alone, 80 drug suspects have been killed by officers during police operations. The number is four times higher than the 18 shot dead last year.

“Destroy the drug market by building more schools, educate children, etc, not by killing [the suspects and convicts],” Matius Arif Mirdjaja, a preacher and human rights defender, said, adding that many drug suspects and convicts had been killed but there had been no significant impact on drugs offenses in the country.