TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) discovered that many family members of suspected terrorists still encountered human rights violations. Komnas HAM commissioner Siane Indriani said the violations were mostly related to police maltreatment.
"The 88 Special Detachment (anti-terror squad) and the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) have shown no improvement," said Siane last Friday, August 23.
She said the police should have avoided violent conducts that often led to the deaths of suspected terrorists. She added such action would traumatize their families.
Siane said the police could avert the deaths of terror suspects as they were equipped with the Cyber Crime Investigations Sattelite equipment able to track down the whereabouts of suspected terrorists.
Siane added the commission had repeatedly lodged complaints of police maltreatment against families of suspected terrorists in prior audiences with national police top brass. Unfortunately, the police appear to have overlooked the reports.
Last Friday, some family members of suspected terrorists filed a complaint at the Komnas HAM. Ummu Nausah, wife of terror suspect Agus Suprianto, said she was harassed and her rights violated when she was visiting her husband at the Mobile Brigade Command Headquarters detention center in Depok, West Java.
Prior to entering the visiting room, Ummu said, female officials searched her by rubbing their hands against her body and taking off her underwear.The searches happened twice before she decided not to visit her beloved spouse again.
"I was only able to visit my husband when he was finally transferred to the Cibinong Penitentiary," she said.
Chief of Public Relations at the National Police Headquarters, Insp. Gen. Ronny Frankie Sompie, said the police always nabbed suspected terrorists in compliance with the procedures. He denied any sort of harassment or human rights violations against terrorist families ever happened.
Frankie said body search was a standard procedure to prevent families from smuggling gunpowder or any type of chemical powders to prisons.
GALVAN YUDISTIRA | MUHAMAD RIZKI
