A recent survey by Jakarta Legal Institute found that many of the people arrested in Jakarta between January 2007 and January 2008 were subject to abuse.
The Jakarta Post reported that not less than 80 per cent of nearly 400 inmates who took part in the survey had experienced torture of some kind. Some of them were shot in the foot and had their chests stomped on by police, and some others claimed to have been electrocuted. Not only that, police also threatened them at gun point during investigations.
A police spokesman, of course, had refused to comment on this.
I never lived in Jakarta, but I heard similar case from my own neighbor in a small town in East Java. I was still in Junior High at that time, and that neighbour was arrested for stealing a chicken. During his term in jail, he was given electric shock — as well as being beaten. Well, he wasn’t the best neighbor I ever had, but being tortured for a chicken doesn’t really sound fair.
Another time, when I visited my cousin who was hospitalized with dengue fever, an inmate was also treated in the same hospital. He was shot for trying to escape when police caught him. He was guilty of stealing a log of wood.
Unlike Anggun who abhors capital punishment, I think to some extent it’s needed. However, torturing prisoners is another story. It’s just plain inhumane. Unfortunately, this is not really something new, even our most famous author, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, had to experienced it himself.
But of course, police can treat their inmate very well too. Just look at the Ganja Queen Schapelle Corby. In the past, people in Australia condemned Indonesia for refusing to deport her to her homeland. They feared that she’d be mistreated during her term. The truth is, this is what happened to her:
“Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby, who is serving a 20-year jail term in Indonesia for smuggling marijuana, spent several hours having her hair and nails done in a Bali beauty salon on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old beautician, whose case is the subject of a documentary film and is frequently in the media spotlight, was convicted in 2005 of smuggling 4.1 kg (9 lb) of marijuana from Australia to Bali.
Flanked by two armed officers, Corby went to a beauty salon in the Balinese capital located near a hospital where she has been receiving treatment for depression, witnesses said.”
Hm, do Australian police also take their inmates to salon when they suffer depression?
Another convict, Tommy Suharto also had no complaints of any mistreatment when he was jailed back in 2002. BBC even described his situation as ‘incarcerated in style’. While other inmates had to share a cell with nine other people, Tommy’s cell had three rooms, 53-centrimetre (21-inch) Sony Trinitron TV, fan and a food container holding various flavours of instant noodles — oh and a branded toilet.
Some inmates are better off than the rest.
