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Rights groups highlight injustices, torture in death penalty sentences
World Day Against the Death Penalty is observed every Oct. 10, calling for countries still implementing capital punishment to abolish it, while raising awareness of the condition of death row convicts, many of whom experience injustice during the legal process leading to their verdict.
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Yusman Telaumbanua, a former death row convict, poses during his visit to The Jakarta Post with human rights group KontraS to talk about the need to abolish the death penalty on Oct. 6, 2023. Yusman was sentenced to capital punishment in 2013 when he was still 16 years old, claiming the police fabricated his age to make him eligible for the death penalty. (JP/Radhiyya Indra)
When Yusman Telaumbanua was dragged into court in 2013 with barely an understanding of the Indonesian language, the 15-year-old from Nias Island, North Sumatra, was forced to admit a crime he did not commit.
“I was beaten by the police during the interrogation, and they said I should say yes to whatever the judge said about me so I could be released quicker,” former death row inmate Yusman told The Jakarta Post on Oct. 6.
Yusman ended up getting the death sentence with a charge of premeditated murder in 2012 after the local police altered his birth year, making him three years older on paper. Minors cannot be sentenced to death in Indonesia.
His story is among many that rights groups have raised this week concurrent with the World Day Against Death Penalty on Oct. 10, as they highlighted the need for Indonesia to abolish the death penalty completely.
Indonesia recently made a breakthrough in its death penalty policy, when the revised Criminal Code (KUHP) passed in December 2022 introduced an automatic 10-year probation period for death row convicts. Demonstrated good behavior could result in the convict having their sentence commuted.
Within the new code, the incumbent president may decrease their sentence to life in prison or 20 years in prison following their probation. This new policy will come into force in 2026.
But despite the policy reform, rights groups like Amnesty International Indonesia (AII) and the Commission for the Disappearances and Victims of Violence (KontraS) still argue that this is not enough.
