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House members divided on death penalty
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All ready – A security guard on Nusakambangan prison island stands guard as family members of death-row inmates pass by ahead of a round of executions in April last year. (thejakartapost.com/Agus Maryono)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo should evaluate the effectiveness of the death penalty in reducing crimes and be aware that it violates human rights, a legislator has said.
“The President needs to know that being decisive does not mean forgetting human values,” Benny K. Harman, deputy chief of the House of Representatives’ Commission III overseeing legal affairs, human rights and security, said at the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Monday.
The Democratic Party politician further said that President Jokowi also needed to re-evaluate judicial processes for drug convicts waiting to be executed, to ensure the fairness of their legal process.
Attorney General M Prasetyo said earlier that the third round of executions of several drug convicts would take place after Idul Fitri on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java.
On Sunday, Merri Utami, a condemned drug convict, was moved to an isolation cell in Nusakambangan. Merri was sentenced to death for carrying 1.1 kilograms of heroin at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in 2003. The transfer was carried out not long after the Supreme Court rejected a second case review request filed by the also condemned Freddy Budiman on Friday. Freddy was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills from China and sentenced to death by the West Jakarta District Court in 2012.
Meanwhile, Commission III member Muhammad Syafi’i of the Gerindra Party said that the death penalty was still needed as convicts punished with life imprisonment could earn remission.
He said criminals like drug dealers had to be executed because the crimes they committed threatened the country’s future generations. (wnd/ebf)
