Indonesia faces criticism over new execution bill despite decade-long pause on death penalty

Amnesty International says Indonesia continues to impose large numbers of death sentences despite a decade-long halt in executions, warning proposed execution regulations risk undermining human rights protections.

Amnesty International has warned that Indonesia remains a significant contributor of new death sentences globally despite not carrying out executions for nearly a decade.

In its latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2025, released on Wednesday, Amnesty International said Indonesian courts handed down at least 68 death sentences during 2025, most of them linked to drug-related offences.

Although Indonesia has not executed prisoners since 2016, Amnesty said the continued use of capital punishment by the courts and the government’s plan to prepare new execution regulations reflected what it described as an inconsistent approach towards the right to life.

New execution bill draws criticism

Amnesty International Indonesia highlighted the government’s move to prepare a Bill on Procedures for Carrying Out the Death Penalty after the issuance of a Presidential Letter to Parliament on 11 March 2026.

Usman Hamid said the proposed regulation represented “a serious setback” for human rights protections.

“The new regulation being prepared is an irony and a serious setback for human rights enforcement. This policy exposes Indonesia’s ambiguous stance towards the right to life, particularly for death row prisoners,” Usman said.

Indonesia’s new Criminal Code, which took effect on 2 January 2026, introduced a conditional death penalty mechanism. Under the new system, death row inmates may receive a 10-year probationary period during which their sentences can be commuted to life imprisonment.

However, Amnesty criticised the government for prioritising technical regulations governing executions rather than strengthening mechanisms for sentence commutation.

“Rather than being preoccupied with designing new ways to take lives, the government and Parliament should focus on abolishing the death penalty entirely and replacing it with a truly civilised, fair, and humane sentencing system,” Usman said.

According to official data from Indonesia’s Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, more than 500 prisoners are currently on death row across the country.

Indonesia among countries with highest number of new death sentences

Amnesty’s report placed Indonesia among the countries recording the highest number of new death sentences during 2025.

Indonesia recorded at least 68 new death sentences, equal to the figure recorded in Pakistan and higher than countries including Malaysia, which recorded 15, and Singapore, which recorded two.

The organisation stated that most death sentences in Indonesia continued to be imposed in narcotics cases.

Death sentences also continued into 2026. Amnesty cited rulings by the Surabaya District Court in February against two drug defendants, as well as an April decision by the Surabaya High Court upholding a death sentence issued in a murder case by the Bojonegoro District Court.

“Indonesia continues to maintain a dual stance on the death penalty. On the one hand, the country has not carried out executions for ten years, yet judges continue to hand down death sentences,” Usman said.

“There is no evidence that the death penalty creates a deterrent effect. We have long urged Indonesia to abolish capital punishment immediately and replace it with punishments that are more just and humane,” he added.

Amnesty calls for commutation of death row sentences

Amnesty International Indonesia urged the government to begin commuting existing death sentences instead of preparing new execution procedures.

The organisation said an initial step could involve commuting the sentences of more than 500 prisoners currently facing execution.

Amnesty also criticised the government’s argument that the proposed legislation was intended to replace outdated regulations and strengthen legal protections for death row inmates.

According to Usman, discussions on the bill should not be rushed because of the potential impact on human rights protections within Indonesia’s criminal justice system.

Global executions reach highest level in decades

Globally, Amnesty International recorded at least 2,707 executions during 2025, the highest number since 1981.

The figure does not include the thousands of executions believed to have taken place in China, where death penalty data remains classified as a state secret.

Amnesty said the sharpest increases in executions were recorded in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United States.

Despite the rise in executions, the organisation said the global abolition movement continued to expand.

As of the end of 2025, 113 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while 145 countries were considered abolitionist either in law or practice. Indonesia remains classified as a retentionist country because its laws still permit capital punishment for ordinary crimes.

Source: theonlinecitizen.com, Staff, May 21, 2026

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

Death Penalty News For a World without the Death Penalty

Comments

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Saudi Arabia: Man beheaded for murder

April 27, 2010: Saudi authorities executed a man by beheading after he was sentenced to death for murder, the interior ministry announced. Saudi national Umair al-Shihri was put to death in the southern city of Bisha for shooting to death another Saudi, Muzakkir al Shahrani, with a machine gun, according to the announcement carried by the state news agency SPA. No details were given about the date or location of the crime, but the ministry said the execution had been put on hold until the victim's children came of age. Source: Agence France Presse, April 27, 2010

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Tennessee | Complaint accuses doctor involved in failed execution of violating medical ethics

A formal complaint has been filed with the Tennessee Department of Health regarding the conduct of a physician involved in the failed execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers on May 21, 2026. The complaint, submitted by Carruthers’ sister, Tonya Hervey on July 15, alleges that Dr. Mark Walton Fowler engaged in unethical medical practices during the aborted procedure. The state’s attempt to execute Carruthers was halted after execution team members spent over an hour unsuccessfully attempting to establish a backup intravenous (IV) line. While a primary line was established, the team’s failure to secure the secondary access required by state protocol led Governor Bill Lee to grant a one-year reprieve.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Why America’s death rows are slowly emptying

The number of death sentences handed out by juries has plunged by more than 90% since the 1990s. On July 8, the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPIC, released its midyear update on capital punishment in the United States. Many of the findings were sadly, disturbingly familiar. For example, racial bias still plays a large role in who gets executed, and the Supreme Court continues to allow executions to proceed even when those being put to death have strong claims of innocence. But there was also encouraging news.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog