ASIA: Women's views on prevention of torture ---Interview 14

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(Free-Press-Release.com) June 19, 2010 -- INDONESIA: Interview with a journalist on women and the justice system in Indonesia

Dinda Nuurannisaa Yura holds a Bachelor's degree in Law and is currently working as journalist for HukumOnline, an online media organization which focuses its news and reports on legal issues.

What do you think of the policing system of your country? Is it good?

If we're talking about law, we can see it in three aspects: substance, structure, and the culture. I would say that the 'substance' aspect of policing system in Indonesia is quite good, considering the fact that in 2009, the Chief of National Police enacted a regulation which obliges Indonesian police officers to respect human rights in exercising their duties. If you read this regulation, you will see that the Indonesia police's perspective on human rights appears to be very good. However, unfortunately, the 'structure' aspect is not that good because we still hear about torture cases conducted by police often. For example, in the framing and torture faced by Mr. Aan - which is the latest torture case to have emerged - Mr. Aan was investigated in a building and tortured because the police wanted him to state false information.

Besides torture, another interesting issue relating to the police in Indonesia these days is the shooting of terrorist members conducted by Special Detachment on Terrorism, Densus 88. Densus 88 is part of the Indonesian National Police but the Chief of Indonesian National Police's regulation on human rights does not apply to them. According to information I've received, in some cases the police has been known to shoot people who are alleged to be terrorists even after they have surrendered. Recently in Solo, there were two alleged terrorists who were shot to death by the police, but the police didn't know their identity and who they actually were. The human rights violation is one issue in this case but another thing we need to highlight here is the validity of information that Densus 88 has, because they didn't even know who the person they shot was! That's what we see in terms of the 'structure' aspect of the policing system in Indonesia.

In the 'culture' aspect, it's no longer a secret that the culture of violence is strong within the policing institution. I do believe that what they are practicing now is what they learned in the police academy.

http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2010statements/2622/

indonesia     torture     women rights