Category: Siaran Pers

LGBT = Nuclear? Indonesia\’s Phobia Emergency

In patriarchal culture, LGBT people are an “Other” that is exiled by the hetero-normative community. This exile causes stigma and discrimination. The prevalent view in the community, of LGBT people as unnatural and in contradiction to many religious values, contributes to the pervasiveness of homophobia and discrimination against LGBT people. In Indonesia, the situation is getting worse because of the absence of legal frameworks to protect LGBT people; this is a weakness in the Indonesian State’s approach to protecting LGBT people. The problem is made worse by the failure of the government to respond to the ongoing stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT people.

Article 27 section (1) of the Indonesian Constitution states that every citizen has equal standing before the law. Therefore, legal protections apply to all citizens, including LGBT people. The principle of non-discrimination is also found in Article 28I section (2). The Constitution, laws and regulations of Indonesia make no express mention of discrimination based on identity or sexual orientation, however, the Indonesian State still has a responsibility to protect all citizens from discrimination that infringes on their human rights; this includes LGBT people.  Indonesia has an ongoing responsibility to defend human rights and hold firm to the principles of equality and non-discrimination in accordance with the commitment it made when it ratified International Conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Culture, the Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and other international agreements that guarantee protection of basic human rights. Based on those conventions, Indonesia has three basic responsibilities: to protect, respect and fulfill the right of all communities in Indonesia, especially those who are vulnerable and marginal.

Unfortunately, equality and human rights protection for LGBT people in Indonesia is still far from meeting expectations. Stigma, homophobia and discrimination are still the main problems for LGBT people. Therefore, Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) decided to undertake monitoring and documentation of stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in the Indonesian press over the course of 2016. It is hoped that the results of monitoring and documentation will be used as reference material and for advocacy in order that we can move beyond stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in Indonesia.

Click this link to download the report.

LGBT = Nuclear? Indonesia\’s Phobia Emergency

In patriarchal culture, LGBT people are an “Other” that is exiled by the hetero-normative community. This exile causes stigma and discrimination. The prevalent view in the community, of LGBT people as unnatural and in contradiction to many religious values, contributes to the pervasiveness of homophobia and discrimination against LGBT people. In Indonesia, the situation is getting worse because of the absence of legal frameworks to protect LGBT people; this is a weakness in the Indonesian State’s approach to protecting LGBT people. The problem is made worse by the failure of the government to respond to the ongoing stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT people.

Article 27 section (1) of the Indonesian Constitution states that every citizen has equal standing before the law. Therefore, legal protections apply to all citizens, including LGBT people. The principle of non-discrimination is also found in Article 28I section (2). The Constitution, laws and regulations of Indonesia make no express mention of discrimination based on identity or sexual orientation, however, the Indonesian State still has a responsibility to protect all citizens from discrimination that infringes on their human rights; this includes LGBT people.  Indonesia has an ongoing responsibility to defend human rights and hold firm to the principles of equality and non-discrimination in accordance with the commitment it made when it ratified International Conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Culture, the Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and other international agreements that guarantee protection of basic human rights. Based on those conventions, Indonesia has three basic responsibilities: to protect, respect and fulfill the right of all communities in Indonesia, especially those who are vulnerable and marginal.

Unfortunately, equality and human rights protection for LGBT people in Indonesia is still far from meeting expectations. Stigma, homophobia and discrimination are still the main problems for LGBT people. Therefore, Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) decided to undertake monitoring and documentation of stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in the Indonesian press over the course of 2016. It is hoped that the results of monitoring and documentation will be used as reference material and for advocacy in order that we can move beyond stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in Indonesia.

Click this link to download the report.

LGBT = Nuclear? Indonesia\’s Phobia Emergency

In patriarchal culture, LGBT people are an “Other” that is exiled by the hetero-normative community. This exile causes stigma and discrimination. The prevalent view in the community, of LGBT people as unnatural and in contradiction to many religious values, contributes to the pervasiveness of homophobia and discrimination against LGBT people. In Indonesia, the situation is getting worse because of the absence of legal frameworks to protect LGBT people; this is a weakness in the Indonesian State’s approach to protecting LGBT people. The problem is made worse by the failure of the government to respond to the ongoing stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBT people.

Article 27 section (1) of the Indonesian Constitution states that every citizen has equal standing before the law. Therefore, legal protections apply to all citizens, including LGBT people. The principle of non-discrimination is also found in Article 28I section (2). The Constitution, laws and regulations of Indonesia make no express mention of discrimination based on identity or sexual orientation, however, the Indonesian State still has a responsibility to protect all citizens from discrimination that infringes on their human rights; this includes LGBT people.  Indonesia has an ongoing responsibility to defend human rights and hold firm to the principles of equality and non-discrimination in accordance with the commitment it made when it ratified International Conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Culture, the Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and other international agreements that guarantee protection of basic human rights. Based on those conventions, Indonesia has three basic responsibilities: to protect, respect and fulfill the right of all communities in Indonesia, especially those who are vulnerable and marginal.

Unfortunately, equality and human rights protection for LGBT people in Indonesia is still far from meeting expectations. Stigma, homophobia and discrimination are still the main problems for LGBT people. Therefore, Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) decided to undertake monitoring and documentation of stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in the Indonesian press over the course of 2016. It is hoped that the results of monitoring and documentation will be used as reference material and for advocacy in order that we can move beyond stigma and discrimination against LGBT people in Indonesia.

Click this link to download the report.

The Bipolar Law: Protecting or Incarcerating?

Problems of health do not only concern issues that are physical, but also psychological. In 2013, a research on basic health estimated that about 1.7 per mille of Indonesian households have a family member with severe mental disorder. Without early and effective treatment the disorder is potentially harmful for an individual’s quality of life and his/her social relationship.  Such treatment constitutes not only providing quality health service, but also legal protection.

Individuals with mental disorder are often unable to access public health services due to the stigma and discrimination against them. People tend to think of them as dangerous, irrational, irresponsible for domestic issues, and unable to work. As a result, they tend to consider the presence of persons with mental disorder as a disturbance, and that they should be put in detention institutions, such as rehabilitation centers, mental hospitals (RSJ), and prisons.

LBH Masyarakat pays special attention to persons with mental disorder (ODGJ) who are dealing with the law, especially those who are alleged to have committed a criminal offense. Our attention is based on the tender age of the legal instrument that governs issues of ODGJ in the criminal justice system. With no legal protection provided during the stage of the arrest there is a huge possibility for ODGJ to get punishment that will only worsen their disorder.

The criminal justice system is not the only cause of the estrangement of ODGJ since in reality ODGJ gets estranged through practices that are common in the society. Confining ODGJ in stocks, for instance, is one of the forms of violence commonly committed by families and communities in Indonesia. In addition to the experience of being confined in stocks, ODGJ are also vulnerable of experiencing other forms of violence.

Based on such consideration, we decided to document cases that are allegedly committed by ODGJ, and practices of violence against ODGJ throughout 2016. One of the reasons for the documentation attempt is a previous experience of loss of a friend and client. In 2015, LBH Masyarakat had a client who was also a friend: Rodrigo Gularte, a Brazilian national who was diagnosed with serious mental and psychological disorders. He was later killed in the name of law through the execution of a death sentence. We were witnesses of how a man who had never been provided with either decent health services or access to fair legal services since the beginning of the judicial process until the bullets went through his body. Therefore, although the name Rodrigo Gularte had disappeared from the news in 2016, this report is dedicated to him and to the other ODGJ who are still kept behind bars, both in official correctional facilities and confined in stocks behind homes.

Click this link to download the report.

Flogging in Numbers and Complications

The local government has received full mandate under the Constitution of 1945 to govern itself in accordance with autonomy prinicple and assistance duty.By the autonomy, the local government has the right, authority,and obligation to maintain its government specificallyini certain sectors, i.e. education, health, public work, spatial planning, public housing, settlement area, public order, and social issues.Aside to the prevailing autonomy in all territories, certain area has special autonomy to regulate and manage the local communities’ interests based on their own initiatives. One of the examples of special autonomy is Aceh Province, pursuant to Law Number 44 of 1999 on Special Autonomy of Aceh Special Region in conjunction with Law Number 11 of 2006 on Aceh Government.

Aceh has the autonomy to conduct religious life based on Islamic Sharia in worship, ahwal al-syakshiyah (family law), muamalah (civil law), jinayat (criminal law), qadha’ (judiciary), tarbiyah (education), proselytizing, syiar (sharing the greatness of Islam), and the defense of islam. The entire conduct of religious life is regulated under the Aceh Qanun.One of the qanuns that acquired many controversies on legality and its implementation is Qanun Aceh No. 6 of 2014 on Jinayat(criminal) Law (Qanun Jinayat). Qanun Jinayat regulates the forbidden act by Islamic sharia (jarimah)and the application of law (‘uqubat) for the perpetrator. One of the types of penalty is flogging.

The application of flogging punishment has triggered critisism because it is against the human rights principles. The special rapporteur for Torture, Manfred Nowak, stated that the flogging penalty applied in Aceh is a violation of state obligation to prevent corporal punishment. Amnesty Internationalhas stated that flogging penalty is a backward movement for human rights enforcement in Indonesia.The Network of Concerned Civil Society for Sharia (Jaringan Masyarakat Sipil Peduli Syariah, JMSPS) also boldly refuses the application of flogging penalty in Aceh because of its inhumanity. The appeal on Qanun Jinayat to the Supreme Court had also been appealed by the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), which categorized flogging penalty as torture, cruel inhumane punishment and it degraded human dignity. Whilst the criminal system in Indonesia has strictly banned flogging punishment.The Supreme Court rejected the appeal because Law Number 12 of 2011 on the Establishment of Legislation that has become the legal basis for the material test of the objection petition is being processed for its testing in the Constitution Court.

Upon the flogging punishment, the Legal Aid (LBH Masyarakat) stands in the same position with the critics of flogging punishment. Legal aid states that flogging punishment is perpertuating corporal punishment that is obsolete for the direction of modern punishment. Based on this belief, we performed monitoring and media documentation during 2016 to now further about the human rights violations of flogging punishment in the life of Aceh society.

Click this link to download the report.

Discrimination on HIV: An Epidemic

HIV/AIDS prevalence in Indonesia is the highest in Southeast Asia region. From 2005 to 2015 the cumulative numbers of HIV cases are 191.073 and 77.121 of AIDS cases. Over the last ten years, various prevention efforts have been made by the government, ranging from harm reduction program in 2006, prevention of transmission to sexual transmission, prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT), to Strategic Use of ARV (SUFA) in 2013. However, these programs still cannot solve HIV/AIDS problems in Indonesia.

One of the causes that has made HIV/AIDS prevention program ineffective is the highly frequent stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) and populations with a high risk of HIV/AIDS (commonly known as the \’key population\’). The Executive Director of UNAIDS stated that stigma is the biggest challenge inhibiting prevention program at community, national, and global level. The assumption that risk behavior is something that violates local norms and values has become the basis for erroneous view on HIV/AIDS. In Indonesia, key populations with a high risk of HIV/AIDS infection are injecting drug users, men who have sex with men, and risky sex behavior. Most of the societies still have a misperception of the key populations as people with immoral behavior. Marginalization of PLHIV and key populations seem to be considered legitimate as social punishment.

As an institution that focuses on the fulfillment of human rights for the community, including PLHIV and key populations, we consider it necessary to monitor the stigma and discrimination against PLHIV and key population. We conduct monitoring and documentation through online media related to news that contains elements of stigma and discriminatory acts against PLHIV and key populations throughout 2016. Hopefully, our monitoring can help map the current situation on stigma and discrimination issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in Indonesia.

Click this link to download the report.

Death of Prisoners: Failure of Sentencing

The birth of prison is thought to be in line with the change of sentence objective, from retaliation principle to rehabilitation principle. Criminal perpetrator is not only acknowledged as a person that causes suffering, but also as someone who has committed a mistake and could be guided again. However, prison sentencing policy implementation in the end betrays this aspiration.

Problems that are encountered are such as prison over-capacity, unfulfilled human rights, violent culture formation in the prison, high recidivism rate, and social relations disconnection between the inmates and their family. These show that prison sentencing discourse still contradicts the initial objective of prison. The rationale of the birth of prison is discontinued because of the situation’s contradiction and irrationality. Among those problems, the problem of death in the prison is the most contradictory characteristic of sentencing discourse. It is as if death makes prison absurdity perfect.

Besides the rhetoric sentimental reason that no one wants to die inside prison, death also contradicts prison’s rehabilitative objective. Assistance that is participated by the inmates – except for those with lifetime sentence – is useless or gone because it cannot be practiced in the targeted destination, which is in the community outside prison. Prison then becomes not as a transit or temporary place, but it becomes inmates’ last station, because in the prison they meet their destiny as humans: death.

The condition is exacerbated if the death is not normal, such as because of accident, homicide, suicide, and substance overdose inside prison. In the United States, the country whose inmate population is the biggest in the world, around 967 inmates died inside prisons in 2013. About 34% of the total number of death was caused by suicide.

Because prison is a state facility –at least in Indonesia—therefore, the main actor that is responsible for deaths inside prisons that are not normal is the state, represented by the Directorate General of Corrections. Although death could be caused by the inmates themselves, corrections institution is the manager that has the task to ensure that prisons could fulfil its main objective as rehabilitation media, including in carrying out management so that riot will not happen and suicide can be prevented.

Regardless the absurdity of sentencing implementation, this practice is still considered as important to exist because Indonesia does not have alternative sentences that have been proven to have good implementation. However, it does not mean that the irrational practice in prison-sentencing that causes death should not be challenged and fixed. Because of this reason, Community Legal Aid strives to document and monitor death events inside correctional facilities in 2016. Hopefully this documentation could clarify the absurd situation of death inside Indonesia’s correctional facilities.

Click this link to download the report.

Addiction on The Failing Drug Policy Strategy

War comes with consequences and implications. The government of Indonesia believes that we are now in a state of war; namely war on drugs. This jargon, the war on drugs, is often used to increase society’s negative sentiment against drugs and its users. One of the most important tools in this war is policy. Since the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, called for the war on drugs in his early presidency, law enforcement agencies have intensified two types of responses in this war, namely criminalization and death penalty. Unfortunately, none of these responses has brought significant improvement of the situation.

With years of experiences in assisting drug offenders and drug reform advocacy, LBH Masyarakat believes that the war on drugs is obsolete. The same responses have been carried out by many countries to fight against drugs, but to no avail.

Apart from policies, the current war on drugs is also equipped with propaganda. This propaganda is easily accessible through online media. In 2016, LBH Masyarakat monitored and documented news from online media on two issues related to drugs. The first issue is on large-scale drug bust, whereas the second one is on drug dealing in or from prison setting. We select these issues because we believe that they may show the level of effectiveness of the two responses that the government undertook, as well as other interesting elements that are involved in the law enforcement efforts.

We hope that the result of this monitoring and documentation can enhance the dialogue processes towards drug policy reform. Indeed, illicit drug trafficking needs to be effectively tackled. However, the means and strategy to do that must be based on and respect the principles of human rights, as well as evidence.

Click this link to download the report.

Joint Statement – Indonesia: Government Should Immediately Establish Moratorium After Maladministration Surrounding Execution

The undersigned organizations urge the government of Indonesia to establish an official moratorium on all executions and review all death penalty cases with a view to the commutation of their sentences as immediate first steps towards abolition of the death penalty. The call follows the publication of the findings by the Ombudsman of Indonesia, confirming violations of legal procedures in the case of a prisoner executed in July 2016.

On 28 July 2017 the Indonesian Ombudsman concluded that the Attorney General had conducted the execution of Nigerian national Humphrey “Jeff” Jefferson Ejike in violation of Indonesia’s legal procedure. The Ombudsman’s decision was announced almost a year after Humphrey was executed on 29 July 2016 in Nusakambangan Island, Central Java, along with other three prisoners. All men had been convicted of and sentenced to death drug-related offenses, which do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” to which the ultimate punishment must be restricted to, pending abolition, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Indonesia is a state party.

Amnesty International, ICJR (Institute for Criminal Justice Reform), KontraS (Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence) and LBH Masyarakat (Community Legal Aid Institute) believe that the Ombudsman’s decision echoes the organizations’ findings documented in many other death penalty cases, which point to systemic flaws in the administration of justice in Indonesia. These include serious violations of the right to a fair trial and of other international safeguards that must be observed in all death penalty cases. We regret that the findings come a year too late, as the irrevocable punishment of the death penalty has already been implemented on Humphrey “Jeff” Jefferson Ejike.

The Ombudsman declared that the Attorney General should have not executed Humphrey “Jeff” Jefferson Ejike because his clemency request was still pending. The Attorney General should have followed the Constitutional Court decision delivered on 15 June 2016 that allowed any convicted person to request clemency beyond up to a year after the final decision being made by the Indonesia’s court. Further, the Ombudsman also declared that the Central Jakarta District Court there was an element of “discrimination” by not submitting Jeff’s case review request –the last available appeal in criminal cases− to the Supreme Court, while they submitted the appeals for case review by other death row prisoners to the Court.

Research findings by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komisi Nasional Hak Asasi Manusia, Komnas HAM) and additional research carried out by Amnesty International, ICJR (Institute for Criminal Justice Reform) showed that defendants facing the death penalty did not have access to legal counsel at crucial stages of the process, whether from the time of arrest or at different stages of their trial and appeals. In some cases the police ill-treated them to make them “confess” to the crimes or countersign police investigation dossiers used as evidence in court. Several prisoners were brought before a judge for the first time only when their trials began, months after their arrest. Some of them did not receive legal assistance when appealing against their conviction or sentence, or did not even submit an appeal application because they were not informed by their lawyers of their right to do so.

In some cases in 2015 and 2016 executions went ahead despite the courts having accepted prisoners’ applications to submit appeals, which had not yet been heard by the courts. Despite the clear prohibition under international law on the use of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the offence, or who have a mental or intellectual disability, our organizations documented that claims which two prisoners made in relation to being under 18 and mental disability were not adequately investigated, resulting in the unlawful imposition of the death penalty and, in one of these cases, execution. The death penalty also continues to be used extensively for drug-related offences.

As of today, 105 countries have fully abolished capital punishment from their legislation and 141 in total—more than two-thirds of the world’s countries—have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. In the Asia-Pacific region, 20 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and a further seven are abolitionist in practice, following the abolition of the death penalty in Fiji and Nauru in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and in Mongolia last July. By continuing to resort to the death penalty, the government of Indonesia is setting the country against the global and regional trend towards abolition of the ultimate, cruel and degrading punishment.

The organizations above renew their calls on the country’s highest authorities to immediately review all death sentences with a view to their commutation, and to establish a moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty, as essential first steps towards its abolition.