Last year,
the president promised to investigate past instances of gross human rights
violations, but he has not done any of this so far
Jakarta Globe, Jan 31, 2015
Jakarta.
Human Rights Watch has lamented President Joko Widodo’s insistence on reviving
executions of condemned inmates, calling it a “cruel” position to take with no
proven deterrent effect.
“HRW is
seriously disappointed with the executions carried out by Joko’s government,”
HRW Asia director Phelim Kine said in Jakarta on Friday.
“It is
cruel, it is irreversible,” he added.
Kine was
speaking at the local launch of the organization’s “World Report 2015,” which
highlighted the promise of greater respect for human rights that was part of
Joko’s campaign platform in his election win in 2014. It did not, however,
address the execution in the early hours of Jan. 18 of five foreigners and one
Indonesian convicted of drug trafficking.
Kine said
Indonesia should follow the example set by other countries that had abolished
the death penalty, and questioned the government’s argument that executing
traffickers would serve as a “deterrent” to other would-be traffickers.
The group
asked Joko, who has vowed not to grant clemency to drug offenders on death row,
to reconsider his stance.
The
Attorney General’s Office said earlier this week that seven more foreigners and
four Indonesians, most of them on death row for drug offenses, would face the
firing squad soon.
HRW
Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono said several local and international
rights groups had spoken with Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly,
urging him to abolish the death penalty.
Harsono
said the groups presented numerous studies that capital punishment was both
wrong and ineffective in deterring crimes.
“Joko is
somebody who works based on facts and evidence. By doing this, we believe that
the government can ensure a moratorium on death penalty,” Kine said.
The group
urged Joko to start making the protection of human rights a priority, saying
that the challenges inherited from his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
were immense.
HRW said
sectarian attacks and impunity by the security forces had worsened over the
years.
Last year, Joko
explicitly promised to investigate past instances of gross human rights
violations, including the disappearance of pro-democracy activists in 1998 and
the 1965-66 anti-communist purge.
Joko also
indicated in July that he would seek to end the government stranglehold on
foreign media access to Papua.
He had not
done any of this so far.
HRW said
Joko should also address the impunity enjoyed by hard-line groups, which have
launched attacks against religious minority groups, tolerance and LGBT rights
activists and advocates, freely and without fear of prosecution.
People react as Edith Visvanathan (not seen in the picture), the grandmother of Myuran Sukumaran who is one of the drug convicts facing execution in Indonesia, appeals to the Indonesian government during a vigil in Sydney on Jan. 29, 2015. More than two thousand Australians, led by local musicians, gathered in Sydney on January 29 in a plea for mercy for two drug convicts facing execution in Indonesia, as concern grew they could soon face a firing squad. (AFP Photo/Saeed Khan)
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