Indonesia's fatal war on drugs

Under President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), Indonesia's war on drugs has taken on a deadly edge. Initially, Jokowi focused on judicial executions, declaring in December 2014 that his government would empty death row of its 64 prisoners sentenced on drugs charges in order to tackle a 'drugs emergency'.

Action followed quickly - his government executed 14 narcotics prisoners within 6 months.

Only 4 further prisoners have faced the firing squad for drugs crimes since, with no executions now for 15 months. But as judicial executions have receded, fatal shootings of narcotics suspects have surged. Indonesian human rights monitor Kontras estimates police and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) fatally shot 106 drugs suspects between September 2016 and September 2017, with the vast majority of these shootings taking place in 2017. The shootings have continued since the release of their data, with at least a further 6 drugs suspects shot dead during October.

As with the judicial executions, this uptick in killings has coincided with hardline rhetoric from Jokowi and his senior law enforcement officials. Jokowi himself was one of the first to speak approvingly of shootings, calling on police on World Anti-Narcotics Day in 2016 to shoot narcotics criminals if the law allowed it (before noting it was fortunate the law did not). National police chief Tito Karnavian was one of those to echo the president's call. In January, he held a press conference at the police mortuary, telling drugs distributors they would end up there if they resisted arrest.

In October 2017 alone, BNN Chief Budi Waseso was reported to have questioned whether those criticising fatal shootings are themselves part of the drugs mafia, said drugs criminals should be cut up and fed to crocodiles, and joked that angels in the afterlife would forgive his officers for killing drugs distributors since they have killed thousands themselves. It is easy to see how such statements could create a permissive environment for extrajudicial killings.

"Both judicial executions and fatal shootings of drugs suspects serve the political interests of powerful actors. Jokowi's turn to drugs executions at the beginning of his term provided both him and his beleaguered attorney general the appearance of a quick win, and allowed Jokowi to present himself as a firm leader."

Several common threads run between these two manifestations - judicial executions and extrajudicial killings - of Indonesia's deadly response to drugs. Although the Indonesian government has insisted it is simply enforcing the law in both instances, its position is tenuous. Certainly, the death penalty remains on the books for narcotics crimes in Indonesia. But drugs executions have become anomalous internationally, conducted only by a handful of mostly authoritarian states.

Even as a retentionist state, the lawfulness of narcotics executions under Jokowi has come under criticism. For example, the Indonesian Ombudsman in July criticised the Attorney General's Department for executing a prisoner who had submitted a plea for clemency, an action it judged to be in violation of Indonesia's Clemency Law. Questions of bias have also been raised over the high proportion of foreigners among those executed and on death row for drugs crimes. 15 of the 18 people to face the firing squad under Jokowi have been foreign citizens.

The legality of fatally shooting drugs suspects appears more tenuous still. As Jim Della-Giacoma has pointed out, police regulations in Indonesia permit the use of fatal force only 'if strictly necessary to preserve human life'. He notes that regulations allow officers to use firearms only when facing extraordinary circumstances, for self defence against threat of death and/or serious injury, or for the defence of others against threat of death and/or serious injury.

This is a much more restrictive set of provisions than the encouragement police have received, including from their own commanders, to fatally shoot drug suspects if they simply resist arrest. Moreover, more than 1/3 of fatal shooting in the 1st half of 2017 took place well after the initial arrest, often at a secondary location. It seems extremely unlikely that circumstances satisfying the above conditions would so often arise well after a suspect had been taken into custody.

Both judicial executions and fatal shootings of drugs suspects serve the political interests of powerful actors. Jokowi's turn to drugs executions at the beginning of his term provided both him and his beleaguered attorney general the appearance of a quick win, and allowed Jokowi to present himself as a firm leader. The government appeared surprised by the international furore these executions stirred up. The attorney general has subsequently justified the more limited use of executions as reflecting the need to focus on economic development.

Human rights lawyer Ricky Gunawan, head of the Jakarta-based Community Legal Aid Institute, sees fatal drugs shootings as similarly allowing the government to maintain a hardline image on drugs, but without the furore the executions created. 'Jokowi is less likely to receive international pressure because the numbers [of fatal shootings] are much lower if compared to Duterte,' he told SBS in July.

The government has not been able to present any convincing evidence that executions or fatal shootings have curbed drugs crime. Yet its 'drugs emergency' rhetoric remains undiminished, with the scale of the drugs problem allegedly justifying the continuing use of lethal measures. Indonesia's fatal war on drugs is yet to approach the scale of the Philippines, even if its rhetoric and methods are increasingly similar. But nor is there any sign of it receding.

Source: eastasiaforum.org, Dave McRae, November 29, 2017. Dave McRae is a senior lecturer at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. He also co-hosts the Talking Indonesia podcast

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Comments

Texas death row prisoner dies after more than 30 years behind bars

A Houston-area man convicted of killing his wife died this week after more than 3 decades on death row, marking the 2nd condemned prisoner to die behind bars in the past month. Prison officials confirmed that William "Billy the Kid" Mason was taken to the hospital on Wednesday and died of cardiac arrest Friday morning. The 71-year-old was originally sent to death row in 1992, after prosecutors said he'd kidnapped his wife and beaten her to death under a bridge because she was playing the radio too loudly. According to court records, her body was found several days later under some logs near the San Jacinto River.

Louisiana | Mother calls for man exonerated of raping and murdering her child to go free

Wrongful convictions by 2 discredited Mississippi experts tops at least 10. A victim’s family in Louisiana is now speaking out. Prosecutors fighting the release of death row inmate Jimmie Duncan after a judge found him “factually innocent” of raping and murdering 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux are “not speaking for Haley’s family,” her mother says. Speaking publicly for the 1st time, Allison Layton Statham called for Duncan to go free in a July 22 bail hearing. “This innocent man is on death row,” she told Mississippi Today. “Justice needs to be done.” In April, a judge threw out Duncan’s conviction, questioning their conclusions and citing the failures of his court-appointed counsel.

Alabama Gov. sets execution date for Geoffrey Todd West

Ivey sets execution for Geoffrey Todd West for 1997 murder at Alabama convenience store ATTALLA, Ala. – A man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery in Attalla is now scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia later this year, nearly three decades after the crime shook Attalla and Etowah County.

Tennessee death row inmate makes last-ditch effort to prevent Aug. 5 execution

Attorneys for a Tennessee death row inmate have launched a last-ditch effort to prevent his Aug. 5 execution. In Nashville 's Chancery Court, they are asking a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to deactivate an implanted defibrillation device similar to a pacemaker in the moments before Byron Black 's execution. If the judge rules in their favor, such an order could potentially delay the execution until the state finds someone willing to do the deactivation.

Inside a Mississippi execution: Clarion Ledger reporter recounts what it was like

The visitation center at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman has no windows, just fluorescent lighting, plastic chairs and tables in a cafeteria-style room. I could technically step outside, but only through a single entrance and doing so meant going through the full security screening all over again — it didn’t feel worth it. A few friendly prison staff walked around, quietly watching us. The Wi-Fi cut in and out. All the while, I returned to the thought I was there to watch someone die.

Inside Japan's secretive execution jails where death row inmates are given minutes notice before facing the noose

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality. It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room. There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment. Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber.

Journalists Reflect on the Challenges and Importance of Media Reporting on the Death Penalty

In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPIC’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sam Levin, a correspondent with The Guardian who covers criminal justice and the legal system, and Jimmy Jenkins, a criminal justice reporter for The Arizona Republic , about the challenges they encounter when reporting on the increasing secretive use of the death penalty. Mr. Jenkins has witnessed executions in Arizona and Mr. Levin has recently investigated South Carolina’s return to executions after a 13-year pause.

Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine in 2017

TOKYO — Japan on Friday executed a man dubbed the "Twitter killer" who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation's first enactment of the death penalty since 2022. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X. He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".

Woman who watched nearly 300 executions explained moment she had to give it up

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

New execution methods may soon come to Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Next month, the state of Florida will officially be allowed to use new means of executing prisoners on death row — with some caveats. That’s because of a state law (HB 903) that’s set to take effect on July 1, alongside over 120 others. The law actually makes a variety of technical changes to different issues, including prepayment of court costs, statutes of limitations on prisoner lawsuits, and location tracking for inmates. However, one of the more prominent issues tackled by the law is the death penalty. Under prior law, a death sentence carried out in Florida had to be performed via either electrocution or lethal injection. The choice of which was left up to the prisoner being executed.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog