Indonesia: Govt seeks 'win-win solution' on death penalty

The government is to retain the death penalty, but intends to seek a "middle way" to accommodate those critics who opposed capital punishment as a violation of human rights, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said on Tuesday.

"There are two opposing views on the death penalty, agreeing [and] disagreeing [...] We're seeking a win-win solution," Yasonna said at the House of Representatives on Tuesday. He added that an alternative sentencing scheme was under consideration, including legal provisions to review a death sentence.

For example, a death sentence could be commuted into life imprisonment, "if death-row convicts have spent ten years in prison and have shown good behavior," the minister said.

Yasonna insisted the death penalty was still necessary and maintained that providing such "alternative" sentencing schemes was a "win-win solution".

Monday marked the 15th World Day Against the Death Penalty. Indonesia is one country that still applies death sentence, particularly for drug-related crimes.

Indonesia executed 14 drug convicts in 2015 and four in 2016. This year, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) plans to execute 134 death row convicts, according to the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR).

The UN has called on Indonesia to abolish the death penalty and adopt the 75 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recommendations that were issued during May's Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

The government has rejected the call from the world body.

Source: Jakarta Post, Margareth S. Aritonang, October 10, 2017

Narcotic Agency Head Budi Waseso says death penalty critics may be part of drug syndicates

Tuesday was World Day Against the Death Penalty, and human rights activists in Indonesia used the occasion to highlight an alarming increase in death penalty prosecutions over the last year and to renew call for a moratorium on the practice until the procedures regulating it can be thoroughly reviewed to prevent human rights violations.

But the head of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), Commissioner-General Budi Waseso, shot back at critics of the death penalty, saying that it was an essential deterrent in the country's war on drugs and implying that those who oppose capital punishment might be criminals themselves.

"Why do these 'sontoloyo' (lit. duck herders; colloquially, people who hold up progress with unimportant issues) keep defending (drug dealers) continuously? What if they are part of the drug mafia syndicate?" Budi said at a press conference Tuesday as quoted by CNN Indonesia.

He specifically took aim at Amnesty International, the activist NGO that defends human rights around the world and has asked the Indonesian government numerous times to place a moratorium on the death penalty in light of the numerous human rights violations related to its use in Indonesia in the past.

"What has Amnesty International ever done for this nation? Did they ever build up Indonesia? Have they ever struggled positively for the nation? Never, right?" Budi said.

Not only did the BNN chief defend the death penalty as a necessary, he suggested the government increase its deterrent value by having them be dicincang (chopped up) instead of shot.

"If we just chopped them up, there would be no need for them to be shot. Showing that would be a real deterrent," said Budi (who, by the way, was indeed the same guy who said he wanted to build a prison exclusively for drug dealers guarded by angry crocodiles).

Budi said that sentencing drug dealers to death could save 212,000 people's lives in Indonesia (not sure where he pulled that number from) and, pulling a card from Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte's playbook, said human rights activists should focus on protecting the rights of victims rather than the rights of drug dealers.

Besides Amnesty, the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), also recently asked that Indonesia declare a moratorium on the death penalty while the process in which criminals can be convicted and appeal the sentence be reviewed for violations of human rights, noting that one of the last people executed by the government, Humphrey Jefferson "Jeff" Ejike, had been denied the ability to exercise all of his appeal options before he was killed.

Source: coconuts.co, October 10, 2017

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