Farouk Arnaz – The National Police, which has long been the target of widespread allegations of human rights abuses, on Thursday issued a new set of law enforcement standards meant to make headway on reforms.

The regulations are a gesture aimed at making the country's police agencies "more transparent, humanist and professional. This is an ongoing process because it's not easy to change our personnel's mind-set and culture," National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said.

Bambang also said that the new rules stipulated that human rights violations by police officers would be fully investigated.

He announced the regulations at the opening of a one-day seminar, "The Implementation of Human Rights Principles and Standard of Human Rights."

Bambang said the rules, which contain 64 separate articles, outlined clear guidelines on the conduct of law enforcement officers, comprehensively covering how police should behave during the process of investigating, summoning, searching, arresting and confiscating material from suspects.

The move came a day after international human rights watchdog Amnesty International released a report, "Unfinished Business: Police Accountability in Indonesia," which alleged that drug users, repeat offenders and sex workers were frequently subjected to torture, degrading treatment and excessive use of force at the hands of police.

The report cited nearly 50 deaths and 60 injuries involving firearms during police attempts to apprehend suspects over a one-year period. The group also concluded there had been little evidence that the suspects resisted arrest.

The new law enforcement statutes are the result of a cooperative effort that brought together the National Police, civil society, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Embassy of the Netherlands. The rules officially recognize the right to live, to be free from torture, to express opinions and to be treated as a person before the law.

The list is an inventory of so-called non-derogable rights, which are qualities that countries, usually under a particular treaty, have no legal basis for denying, even in a state of emergency.

Bambang said it would take time for the regulations to be effectively imposed on officers at all levels and ranks.

"We have more than 380,000 officers and it's not as easy as it would seem," he said. "After the presidential election, we will disseminate this regulation, with the help of the IOM and Indonesian NGOs."

Responding to the Amnesty International report, Bambang said police were not as badly behaved as the document had indicated. "We thank them for the criticism, but we hope that they would be more objective in making such a report," he said.

He added that such a vital assessment should not rely merely on interviews with suspects, who were likely to play down their role in crimes they were accused of and at the same time inflate accusations against police.

"We are better now," Bambang said. "If some of our officers are found guilty of abusing or extorting suspects, those are isolated cases, so please don't make generalizations. I also promise to take clear action if my personnel breach the rules, so please report them to us." IOM staff member Zumrotin echoed Bambang. "We should ask what was the method [used by Amnesty International] in gathering the information. Was it correct?"

Adnan Pandupraja, a National Police Commission member, welcomed the new regulations, saying the body would enforce them and facilitate the culture change.