December 10, 2024
JAKARTA – There have been at least 116 recorded cases of police brutality in the country this year, including 29 extrajudicial killings, a study by Amnesty International Indonesia has found, citing a lack of evaluation, normalized violence and a permissive government attitude toward police misconduct as the primary contributing factors to the “worrying” pattern.
Launching the report on Monday, Amnesty Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said the police frequently used excessive force and often with impunity.
“Police violence continues to take place systemically. This is typically followed by lack of accountability and a weak commitment from policymakers to ensure that officers adhere to the principles of human rights,” Usman said.
Citing reports from various rights organizations, such as the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and Imparsial, Usman said there was an indication that the excessive use of force went beyond individual conduct.
A culture of normalized violence within the police force, Usman said, had contributed significantly to the tendency of officers to “hastily resort to the use of force” in their work, particularly when dispersing protests.
He cited several instances of the police allegedly using excessive force during a series of major protests against lawmakers’ interference with regional election rules in August. Amnesty found that 579 people across 14 cities and 10 provinces were either injured or arbitrarily detained.
“Police violence has been observed during nonviolent demonstrations, repressing critical voices. […] The promise of a more humanistic National Police has evidently failed,” Usman said.
Of the 116 cases of police brutality that Amnesty Indonesia recorded this year, 26 were of torture, 28 were of intimidation and the use of physical violence, 21 were of arbitrary arrest and 7 were of improper use of tear gas or water cannon.
Amnesty also recorded five extrajudicial killings in Papua, four in North Sumatra and three in Riau.
In the past few weeks, pressure has been mounting for a thorough and transparent investigation into the death of a teenage student who was allegedly shot by Second Adj. Insp. Robig Zaenudin in Semarang, Central Java, in late November.
The Semarang Police initially said the officer had been trying to break up a student brawl. But the public questioned the narrative.
The police then said Robig’s decision to open fire on the students had nothing to do with any attempt to disperse the brawl, and Semarang City Police chief Sr. Comr. Irwan Anwar acknowledged that his subordinate had used “excessive force” and was “neglectful in assessing the situation”.
Robig is being detained at the Central Java Police headquarters and is under investigation by the internal affairs division for the use of excessive force but has not been named a criminal suspect.
The Semarang shooting case came a little over two years after the police made a public pledge to improve their internal procedures following the murder of a policeman by his superior, then-National Police internal affairs chief Ferdy Sambo. The two-star general was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder and orchestrating a cover-up.
In a separate press briefing on Sunday, the YLBHI expressed frustration over the police’s continued pattern of violence, calling on lawmakers to further regulate the use of firearms by the police to reduce fatalities.
“The situation today is urgent, marked by the frequent and arbitrary misuse of firearms by the police institution,” YLBHI deputy chairman Arif Maulana said.
“The responsibility of the police is to serve the public, as well as enforce the law and maintain public order. The police institution must be democratic and have respect for human rights, refraining from a violence-based approach,” he added.