Jakarta – The majority of suspects in Jakarta are subjected to brutality while in police custody, a recent study claims.
According to a Jakarta Legal Institute (LBH) survey, 83.7 percent of respondents said they had been subjected to various forms of torture and police brutality.
The respondents included 367 suspects who had been in police custody between January 2007 and January 2008, from across five municipalities and one regency in Jakarta province, as well as from Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi.
LBH researchers surveyed sample populations from Salemba Penitentiary in Central Jakarta, Pondok Bambu and Cipinang Penitentiaries in East Jakarta as well as from a juvenile correctional facility in Tangerang.
City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Ketut Untung Yoga Ana refused to comment on the survey findings. "I don't want to comment. It's not clear where they got their data from," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday, refusing to take further questions.
Among the survey's respondents, 22 were under 18 years old, with 34 females surveyed, the report says.
According to the findings, 24.3 percent of total respondents said they were threatened at gun point by police during investigations.
Police tended to use three types of violence – physical, non-physical and sexual – the survey reported.
Beatings were the most common form of physical violence, with 158 respondents testifying they had been beaten, followed by kicking (94 respondents) and slapping (93 respondents). Other forms of physical violence included being dragged (39 respondents) and blindfolded (16 respondents).
With respect to non-physical violence, 159 respondents claimed to have been yelled at, with 89 held at gun point and 44 stripped.
Some respondents were shot in the foot and had their chests stomped on by police, the survey found.
In some cases, respondents claimed to have been electrocuted or stabbed by a third party – usually the victim of the crime the detainee was suspected of – with the consent and instruction of the police.
"According to respondents, the aforementioned violence had an objective in relation to the alleged criminal act: It was meant to obtain a confession and information," the survey says.
Patterns of violence detected in the survey are comparable to those revealed by a 2005 study, with a slight increase in cases of police brutality, the report concludes.
The 2005 survey found 81.1 percent of detainees in Jakarta and greater Jakarta (nearly 531 individuals) testified they were victims of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
To prevent such acts from occurring in the future, the Indonesian criminal procedural code and the Indonesian criminal code should be amended, with a strong focus on the reduction of detention periods, as well as on victim rehabilitation and proof of the value of information obtained through torture, the LBH report says.