Respect for human rights?

Respect for human rights?

Onghokham wrote in The Jakarta Post on Nov. 12 that reticence
in arresting Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was part of a trend to greater
respect for human rights.

I find this hard to believe after watching an episode of
Patrol, the crime news program on Indosiar.

I noticed that police auxiliaries in West Jakarta were
throwing suspected prostitutes into a truck. The evidence against
them was that they were standing near the road where the officers
were performing their "human trash" sweeping operation.

The cameras then moved to Central Java, where police had
arrested some suspected drug sellers. The suspects, half naked,
hobbled out of the police station with bruised and swollen faces.

After this we saw a suspected thief who was not hobbling but
rather hopping on one leg. The reporter explained that to stop
him running away the police had "burned his foot with hot lead",
meaning they shot him.

Unlike the secret taping of the removal of Ba'asyir from
hospital, all these stories were obviously filmed with the
cooperation of the police and both police and reporters seemed
proud of their actions.

Several other TV channels have similar programs focussing on
self-righteous voyeurism, invasion of privacy, violation of the
presumption of innocence and the public humiliation of suspects
who are denied access to lawyers and subjected to police
interrogation under the glare of television lights.

So I doubt that police caution and the outcry from some
quarters in the Ba'asyir case arise from consistent human rights
standards. Rather they reflect Ba'asyir's higher status as a man
with potentially violent followers and commodity value for
politicians hoping to exploit sectarianism.

JOHN HARGREAVES, Jakarta