TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The People’s Coalition for the Abolition of Death Penalty (Koalisi HATI) has urged the government to implement a moratorium on executions of drug convicts because it violates human rights and has no deterrent effect on drug offenders.
“Death penalty gives no solution for drug trafficking [issue],” said Bahrain, Director for Advocacy of Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (LBH), at his office on Sunday, October 9, 2016. The Joko Widodo administration has executed 14 drug inmates so far. However, data from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) shows that drug trafficking continues to rise.
“Data from the BNN revealed that there were 1.7 million [drug] users in 2015. After the second round of executions, it has gone up to 5.9 million people,” Bahrain said. He has called on the government to change sentences given to death row inmates.
Aside from calling for a moratorium on death penalty, Koalisi HATI has also urged President Joko Widodo to establish an independent team to investigate into wrongful convictions, citing inconsistent approach and lack of transparency in implementing the death penalty.
Head of Indonesian Advocacy for Fellowship of Victims of Drugs Totok Yulianto argued that death penalty is often adopted by the government as the last resort. “In Soeharto era, [death penalty] was adopted on political crimes. In Jokowi era, it is adopted on drug crimes,” he said.
According to Totok, the government will find another avenue if it is committed to evaluating the real problems. “Such evaluation has never been done,” he said.
In 2014, the government pushed for the death penalty. President Joko Widodo also planned to rehabilitate 100,000 drug users. It turned out that only 21,000 had been rehabilitated, Totok said. Consequently, the government has resorted to the death penalty in 2016. “President Jokowi tries to cover up his failure by [resorting to] death execution,” he said.
MAYA AYU PUSPITASARI
