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Police deny families of accused rioters visitation rights
Dewi (not her real name) looked distraught on Thursday afternoon at Kramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta
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span>Dewi (not her real name) looked distraught on Thursday afternoon at Kramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta. She had been going back and forth to the hospital for two days in a row to check on her boyfriend’s health, albeit only through a glass window.
“I am not allowed to visit [my boyfriend] Markus because he is suspected of having attacked security personnel during the May 21 and 22 riots,” Dewi told The Jakarta Post recently, referring to riots that broke out in Jakarta shortly after the General Elections Commission announced the result of the presidential election.
Thousands of supporters of losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto took to the streets to challenge the result, which was announced in the early hours of May 21. The peaceful rally turned violent on May 22 as some protesters purportedly set fires to a police dormitory and several vehicles. They also threw stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces.
A police officer looking after Markus at in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital told Dewi that she had to gain permission from his supervisor before seeing her boyfriend.
Dewi then caught a glimpse of Markus through a glass window of the ICU. His body was attached to an intravenous catheter. She was not sure whether Markus knew she was there.
“I still come here every day even though I can only see him through a glass window,” Dewi said, sobbing. She went to the Jakarta Police headquarters in South Jakarta to gain permission to see him, but to no avail.
The officer, according to Dewi, said the family members of accused rioters did not have visitation rights.
Her statement was echoed by Falis Aga Triatama, an activist from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) who assisted Dewi in the case. “We tried to visit Markus last Thursday but the hospital staff members did not allow us to,” Falis said, adding that all victims of the riots were not allowed to see their family members.
He questioned the reason behind the restriction as every detainee actually had the right to be visited by their respective families, as stipulated in Article 60 of the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP).
Markus was reportedly arrested on the morning of May 23 in a parking lot near Al-Huda Mosque on Jl. Kampung Bali, Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, together with his two friends, identified as Andri and Lubis. Footage of the arrest went viral on social media as one of the accused rioters, who was unarmed, was attacked by police personnel.
A false statement on Twitter claimed the beaten man was a 15-year-old boy named Muhammad Harun Rasyid who eventually died because of the beating. The police were quick to deny the claim by saying that the man in the video was Andri.
Harun died in riots that took place in Slipi, West Jakarta, but the police did not reveal his cause of death. They said that they would first conduct a thorough investigation on it.
Iwan, a resident of Kampung Bali, told the Post separately that the man, based on his appearance in the viral video, might be Markus. “I am sure it is Markus,” said Iwan, who said he used to see Markus hanging out at the parking lot.
Dewi explained that her boyfriend commuted from Kediri, East Java, to Jakarta to take on odd jobs to make ends meet. He had neither relatives in the capital nor a family to come home to there. His wife passed away several years ago. Markus had made the parking lot his home.
“I don’t know whether the man in the video is Markus or not. What I know is that he is now in a critical state in the ICU. Some who witnessed the arrest and the police brutality said that Markus might have died or become disabled at this point,” Dewi said. “I hope there is justice for him.”
At least eight individuals, mostly underage, died in the two days of rioting that broke in Central and West Jakarta. Meanwhile, some 700 others received medical treatment at hospitals around the riot sites.
Human rights activists previously raised concerns that security officers might have used excessive force in handling the riots. Therefore, they urged oversight bodies such as the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and Indonesian Ombudsman to investigate the allegations.
