Indonesia: No execution in 2009, but 98 convicts still on death row

Anti-death penalty activists welcomed Tuesday that the Indonesian government did not carry out executions in 2009, the first year it has not exercised the death penalty in the country since 2004.

It means Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian country with the penalty that did not apply the punishment last year, according to a report issued by Amnesty International, with the politically volatile Thailand carrying out its 1st executions in 6 years.

But activists stressed that more needed to be done to abolish what they called a "cruel form of punishment" in the country, with a remaining 98 people on death row.

"Unfortunately the death penalty as a punishment still features in many Indonesian laws. Last year, the Aceh local parliament passed a bylaw stipulating that adultery be punished by stoning to death," Amnesty International Indonesia researcher Isabelle Arradon told The Jakarta Post.

"No criminal justice system is immune from the miscarriage of justice and Indonesia should remove the death penalty from the books to ensure it does not execute innocent people," she added.

Papang Hidayat from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said the country needed to revise 11 legislations to abolish the death penalty.

The legislations include the criminal law, the 1951 Emergency Law, the 1999 Corruption Law, the 1997 Narcotics Law, the 2000 Human Rights Tribunal Law and the 2003 Counterterrorism Law. The criminal law alone classified 10 crimes, including treason and premeditated murder, as punishable by execution.

"We still have a number of draft laws that carry out the death penalty," Papang said, citing draft laws on state secrecy and intelligence.

Indonesian activists have been pushing the government to apply a moratorium on death-penalty convicts, whose number has reached 119 since 1998.

The Attorney Generals Office has executed 21 people, including the Bali bombers in 2008.

The latest criminal to receive the death sentence is Very Idham Henyansyah, who was convicted for premeditated murder in a high-profile mutilation case last year.

Poengky Indarti from Imparsial said 72 death convicts had been charged with drug offenses, highlighting the plight of foreign drug suspects who often stood trial without being accompanied by competent translators.

Arradon acknowledged that there had been a debate on the death penalty in Indonesia in recent years, adding it was "now time for action."

The Indonesian authorities should seize the opportunity and align themselves to the landmark decision of the Philippines, which abolished the death penalty in law and practice in 2006.

The government has executed 21 people since 1998, including the Bali bombers.

Source: Jakarta Post, March 31, 2010