Ulma Haryanto, Zaky Pawas & Farouk Arnaz - A raft of cases of torture at the hands of Indonesian police are reported to humanitarian watchdogs every year, but two stand out in the mind of Nurkholis Hidayat.

The director of Jakarta Legal Aid said on Tuesday that although his office dealt with 10 cases of police torture last year, two cases from two years ago continued to trouble him. The cases were reportedly followed up by the police, but the results of their investigations were never made known to Jakarta Legal Aid, much less the public, Nurkholis said.

"A transvestite in South Jakarta was severely abused, beaten up and urinated on while police officers, several of them drunk, interrogated [the transvestite] about a stolen mobile phone," Nurkholis said.

Rico Saputra, who was 24 at the time of the incident, said that around 20 officers from the South Jakarta Police "pushed my head to the wall, urinated on me, doused me with beer and burned me with cigarette stubs."

The second case involved a woman from North Jakarta, the wife of a bank robber named Mulyana. Mulyana was arrested in July 2009 over a Rp 15 billion ($1.65 million) bank heist, Nurkholis explained.

Edy Halomoan Gurning, another Jakarta Legal Aid official, said the woman was given electric shocks on 13 points of her body to get her to reveal the whereabouts of her husband.

"All of these cases were reported to Propam [the Bureau of Professionalism and Security Affairs]," Edy said. "However the results of their investigations were never made known to us."

In a search for answers in these cases, and dozens of others that have seen investigations either stall or close down, activists from several prominent civil society organizations such as Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) visited the Jakarta Police on Tuesday.

Indria Fernida, Kontras deputy coordinator, demanded Jakarta Police Chief Insp. Gen. Sutarman explain "what progress, if any" had been made in the case of Tama Satrya Langkun, an ICW researcher brutalized by unidentified attackers over his investigations into police corruption.

"Since this capital got its new police chief, we have not received any information on this case's progress," Indria said.

"We ask the Jakarta Police Chief, as the highest security authority for Jakarta's residents, to be more firm in taking action against vigilante groups," Indria said. Tama sustained multiple bruises and cuts to his head and was hospitalized for several days last year.

Nationwide headlines and continuous reportage on the attack eventually saw him receive a hospital visit from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. When the news coverage stopped, however, investigations into the case stalled.

"Each of us have our own questions to ask. Personally, I am not satisfied with the police's investigations," Tama said.

"ICW as an institution, other NGOs and the public are also dissatisfied," he added. "We want to know who did this! Who was behind it? This is a challenge for police."

Indria also pointed out that police torture had at times been accompanied by fabricated reports, particularly when it came to drug cases.

"In drug-related cases, it is not uncommon for police to set people up, intending to lead a person into being caught red-handed with drugs in their possession," Indria said.

Ricky Gunawan, program director at the Community Legal Aid Foundation, said that he was familiar with cases of innocent people being framed over drug possession, as well as the unnecessary abuse of drug addicts.

"Our sources on the ground tell us that some police precincts have quotas to fulfill every month regarding drug cases," he said.

Susandhi Sukatma, a man accused of possession of 0.1467 grams of ecstasy residue, said that officers from the Maluku police interrogated him and tortured him in a Jakarta office building, but they remained unpunished.

"Even though a police ethics tribunal found those officers in breach of ethical conduct, nothing really serious happened to them," he said.

The Jakarta High Court recently overturned a district court ruling that acquitted him of all charges. The High Court instead sentenced him to four years in prison and Rp 800 million in fines. Susandhi is filing his appeal with the Supreme Court today.

Separately, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar said he was aware of the problem and to begin addressing the issue, the government had organized a human rights workshop for officers of the National Police's elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob).

"When they make an arrest, there must be enough evidence to charge suspects," Patrialis said. "Interrogation should be done without torturing suspects."

The planned workshop would be held at the Brimob headquarters in Depok, he added. "This is just the beginning. After this [workshop] we are going to do it with others institutions."

Kontras has accused the National Police of being the state institution guilty of committing the highest number of acts of violence against the public in 2010.

Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar said that 34 cases of police violence against the public had been reported.

Most involved torture, especially during investigations. The excessive use of force and abuse of police weapons was also common, he said.