On Jakarta’s Streets, Opinions Divided on Executions

Jakarta Globe, Ryan Dagur, Mar 08, 2015

As Indonesia’s government pushes forward with the planned executions of convicted drug smugglers, including two Australians, there are also sharply differing opinions on capital punishment among the public.

On the streets of the capital some residents interviewed offered support for President Joko Widodo’s tough stance against leniency for drug criminals, while others believed Indonesia’s renewed pursuit of capital punishment reflected poorly on his administration.

“I support the death penalty,” said Sukirman, a 43-year-old food seller in Central Jakarta.

Sukirman said the son of a friend of his died of an accidental drug overdose.

“He was just 20 years old,” said the father of three teenagers. “Because of drugs, he died at a very young age.”

Eeng, 56, sells chips at a traditional market in Jakarta. She said she believed drug users caused problems for their families and friends.

“What they do is too risky,” she said. “So it’s OK if drug smugglers are sentenced to death.”

Like many who support the death penalty here, 26-year-old Riska Martina Sitepu said she believed the severity of the punishment served as a deterrent to would-be drug offenders.

“Drug smugglers deserve the death penalty,” said the office worker. “Life imprisonment doesn’t suit them.”

She said Joko’s stance on the death penalty, so far refusing to offer clemency to convicted drug offenders since taking office last year, was the right move.

Even if someone in her own family was facing the death penalty for drug crimes, she said, she would agree with it.

“Those drug convicts on death row have destroyed the lives of so many people,” she said.

Too harsh

Other Indonesians, however, believe capital punishment is too harsh a penalty for convicted drug smugglers.

“The death penalty is inhumane. I prefer life imprisonment,” said Fransiska Happy, a 36-year-old homemaker.

Sigit Wibowo, a 27-year-old teacher, said he believed the death penalty was wrong in all cases.

“No one has the right to take away someone’s life, no matter what,” he said.

For 24-year-old student Bernadina Cisasiandri Wersun, capital punishment ignored the possibility that people convicted of drug crimes could reform.

“Why doesn’t the government give them a more humane punishment, like life imprisonment? My point is to give people the time to change,” she said. “I believe that they can change if they are given life imprisonment.”

Muliawan Margadana, a mining company director, called the death penalty “a shortcut” that failed to address the root problems of drugs in Indonesia.

“Such issues can actually be addressed by enlivening social infrastructure like schools,” he said. “Religions also have a big role in making sure that young people don’t use drugs.”

Margadana, who is also chairman of the Jakarta-based Association of Catholic Graduates and Intellectuals in Indonesia, said Joko’s recent pursuit of the death penalty reflected poorly on his administration and the country as a whole.

“I think this is a bad policy of the president. He should be able to cancel the death penalty for the sake of humanity,” Margadana said. “By implementing the death penalty, he violates human rights and shows how uncivilized we are as a nation.”

‘Zero political gain’

Joko announced last year that he would not be lenient when dealing with drug-related crimes.

In January, Indonesia went ahead with the executions of six convicted drug traffickers, five of them foreigners. Since then, preparations have moved forward for other executions, including those of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two Australian nationals convicted for their roles in the so-called “Bali Nine” drug-smuggling operation.

Authorities last week announced that the pair had been transferred to an island prison where their executions appear to be imminent. This comes despite the Australian government’s repeated requests for leniency.

Some analysts have attempted to explain why Joko has pushed forward with carrying out the death penalty so early in his term.

Some have argued that it is part of an attempt by Joko to show “decisiveness,” one of his perceived weaknesses among critics during the lead-up to his July election victory.

Yet it is also likely that there is no public consensus on capital punishment in Indonesia.

Political analyst Yohanes Sulaiman says there are no reliable public opinion surveys on the issue, and he believes answers to such a poll would swing wildly depending on how one frames the question.

For now, he said, the Indonesian media have framed it as a question of stemming drug abuse and standing up for Indonesian nationalism — most of the next round of planned executions involve foreigners, while Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s suggestion of foreign policy repercussions should the executions proceed have galvanized supporters of the death penalty.

Combined with frequent statements of support for the death penalty from Indonesia’s political elite, it has created an environment where Joko believes it is important to show decisiveness on this issue, Yohanes says.

“I tend to think that Jokowi wants to forge an image of himself as a leader and a father of a nation,” said Yohanes, who is a lecturer at the Indonesian National Defense University.

However, he also believes the death penalty is not a key issue for most Indonesians, who may be more interested in the anti-corruption platform on which Joko ran, and was elected, last year. That may mean Joko has little to gain, politically, by proceeding with the executions, yet much to lose if he does not.

“I don’t think Jokowi is going to get any popularity boost by executing the Bali Nine suspects,” he said. “But if he doesn’t execute them, people will say he’s weak, he’s not as strong. So basically, Jokowi is painting himself into a corner. This has zero political gain for him.”

Religious views

The death penalty has also proved divisive among religious groups.

Said Aqil Siradj, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, said in an interview that drug smugglers should be sentenced to death.

“The impact of such a crime is very massive,” he said. “That’s why we choose to support the heaviest punishment against drug smugglers as it can decrease the number of people getting addicted to drugs.”

Philip K. Widjaya, secretary general of the Indonesian Council of Buddhist Communities, said his organization believed the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for drug crimes.

“We don’t want a small group of people to harm a big number of others,” he said. “That’s why we don’t mind the death penalty being implemented.”

Other religious leaders, however, are strongly opposed.

“The death penalty violates the right of a criminal to have repentance and to change,” said Fr. Peter C. Aman, a moral theology lecturer at the Jakarta-based Driyarkara School of Philosophy.

Fr. Paulus C. Siswantoko, secretary of the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference’s Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral for Migrant-Itinerant People, said that the Catholic Church opposed the death penalty.

“No one, including the state, has the right to take someone else’s life,” he said. “It is hoped that the state plays its role of education for criminals. We believe that people can change.”

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