Jakarta – The 30-year-old woman stuttered as she tried to tell the story of when she had been arrested by a group of police officers in 2005. "They covered my eyes, put me in a car and drove me around, and then I was beaten," said former junkie Janice, not her real name.

Like many others, Merry had had a similar experience, as nongovernmental organizations continue to find cases of abuse, and even torture, across the country.

The Indonesian Anti-Torture Network said Thursday it was high time the government showed its commitment to eradicating the practice of physical abuse, perpetrated mostly by police officers.

Poengky Indarti from the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor, Imparsial, said that, as a consequence of the ratification of the Anti-Torture Convention in 1998, the government had to do all it could to protect the people from such practices.

However, the government's commitment is in question, as calls to amend the Criminal Code to include the definition of torture and punishments for perpetrators have not garnered any significant response.

Efforts to revise the Criminal Code, Poengky said, had been made around 20 years ago. "If the country takes no action to eliminate the use of torture, it could be considered a crime against humanity," she said on the sidelines of a discussion on the use of torture in law enforcement in Indonesia.

Budiono Widagdo from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights said the new Criminal Code bill was, in fact, under deliberation at the House of Representatives. "However, I doubt the lawmakers will have time to pass it before new House members take their seats," he said.

Poengky said existing laws did not accommodate cases of abuse and torture. The Criminal Code, she added, only stipulated that state officials could get up to four years' imprisonment if they used violence in their search for information.

"It's not enough," she said, "in many cases, only the perpetrators are given sanctions and not those who had allowed, or even ordered, the torture; also, the sanctions given are too lenient. Most of the perpetrators are only given administrative sanctions, and then they get promoted and transferred elsewhere."

The root of the problem, Poengky told The Jakarta Post, came down to stigmatization. "When someone is categorized as a communist supporter, a junkie, a prostitute or whatever, people, including police officers, think it is OK to beat them up," she said.

Merry said she wished police officers would stop seeing junkies as criminals. "We are victims. Don't beat us up as if we were thieves," she said. (adh)