Kontras, Amnesty International criticize justice system

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The watchdog group National Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) is of the opinion that torture, especially during the interrogation of suspects in the country, will not end if the state fails to thoroughly improve the criminal justice system.

Kontras co-founder Munir said on Monday that no current laws or regulations are directly applicable against torture nor can any be used to control the behavior of the police, state investigators or the military and security forces.

The government has only begun to concentrate on creating legal prohibitions against torture in the draft of the revised Criminal Code which is not yet complete, but will be debated in the House of Representatives when they reconvene.

Munir argued that such a condition, inevitably, gives impunity to those responsible for human rights abuses in the course of interrogations.

"Even though Indonesia has signed the international convention against torture in 1998, which has been stipulated in our Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, it doesn't mean that our national laws are automatically enforceable to end the abuses.

"Those laws have no support from other laws, such as the military law or clauses in the procedure code controlling the investigators. Therefore, the logical result is, they give impunity to the perpetrators of torture," he told The Jakarta Post.

Munir made the remarks in response to Amnesty International's suggestion, whose press release was made available to the Post, which stated that to explicitly prohibit torture in the Criminal Code is the first and most basic step that should be taken by Jakarta to end torture.

Amnesty's statement was made in conjunction with the current meeting of the United Nations Committee against Torture which is reviewing periodic reports from the governments of Indonesia, Israel, Ukraine, Zambia and Benin.

A team of 10 independent experts, who chaired the session in Geneva, Switzerland, questioned Jakarta's commitment, after reading reports of ill-treatment carried out by the security forces in many forms.

Amnesty revealed that its documented cases of torture included criminal suspects and individuals involved in land and labor disputes, who are often beaten, burnt with cigarettes or matches, threatened with death, or raped by interrogators.

However, National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang argued that his force had taken firm actions against policemen who were in violation of the laws which prohibit torture of suspects.

He also stated that suspects would, in the future, always be accompanied by their lawyers during interrogation -- the police will provide lawyers if the suspects cannot afford them -- so the suspects can file a protest should there be any torture.

"The existing laws clearly state that those responsible for torture will be punished. However, I cannot say that there is no torture during interrogation, but we work diligently to avoid it. We have even brought some of our men to the military court for torturing suspects," he told the Post.