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Activists decry govt’s ‘double standard’ on death penalty
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Call for abolition: Activists hold placards during a vigil on February 19 against the impending execution of Malaysian national Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, sentenced to death for trafficking heroin into Singapore, outside the Singaporean embassy in Kuala Lumpur. (AFP/Mohd Rasfan)
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uman rights advocates have denounced the government’s “double standard” on capital punishment, following a recent report that revealed its ongoing tendency to hand down the death penalty, while simultaneously repatriating a number of death row convicts to their respective home countries.
A report released on Tuesday by human rights group Amnesty International on death sentences and executions in 2024 showed that Indonesia sentenced 85 criminals to death last year, 64 of whom were for drug-related offenses and the remaining 21 for murder. While the country has not proceeded with its executions since 2016, new sentences continue to be given every year.
The figure positions Indonesia among Southeast Asian countries churning out the highest number of new death sentences last year, just below Vietnam with over 150 and Thailand with 115. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s neighboring country of Malaysia is carrying out “large-scale commutations of the death penalty”, Amnesty noted.
Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid urged the country to follow in the footsteps of Malaysia to “realize a just and humane justice system that is in line with the global trend to end the death penalty”, adding that the country should not lag behind its neighbors.
At the same time, the group noted Indonesia’s recent move to repatriate a number of death row convicts to their respective countries, calling it “partial, and does not reflect a change in Indonesia's stance on the death penalty”.
Read also: Death sentences keep rising in Indonesia as global executions hit new record: Amnesty
President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has so far repatriated Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina sentenced to death 14 years ago for a drug case, five Australians in the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring group and French national Serge Atlaoui who was on death row for two decades, also for a drug-related offense.
