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View all search resultsIndonesia keeps death penalty despite execution hiatus
The country saw its last executions in 2016 of four drug trafficking convicts. While Indonesia has maintained a hiatus on new executions, the death penalty remains legal, although the new KUHP, which took effect in January, marks a shift in the legal framework by classifying it as a “special punishment” to be imposed only as a last resort.
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Activists hold placards during a vigil on Feb. 19, 2025 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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ndonesia has gone a decade without carrying out the execution of a death row prisoner, but courts continue to hand down capital punishments even as the new Criminal Code (KUHP) no longer classifies the death penalty as a principal punishment.
The country saw its last executions in 2016 with four drug trafficking convicts. While Indonesia has maintained a hiatus on new executions, the death penalty remains legal, although the new KUHP, which took effect in January, marks a shift in the legal framework by classifying it as a “special punishment” to be imposed only as a last resort.
The code stipulated the death penalty must be imposed as an alternative to life or a fixed-term imprisonment. Judges may give a 10-year probation period during which the sentences may be commuted if a prisoner demonstrates commendable conduct.
The provisions bring “a breath of change” to criminal law reform, according to the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras), although death sentences continue to be handed down throughout the year.
Some 639 people, including nine women, were on death row as of April, up from 596 in August 2025, according to Kontras’ 2026 report on death sentences in Indonesia. The report was published on Oct. 9 ahead of the World Day against the Death Penalty, which is commemorated every Oct. 10.
Drug-related offenses accounted for the largest share of cases with 441, followed by murder at 165 and nine for robbery.
The use of death sentences for drug-related offenses has raised serious human rights concerns, said Kontras researcher Windy Koesherawati. She cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that stipulates such a punishment may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes”, a category excluding drug-related crimes.
