Amir Tedjo, Surabaya – The death of a drug suspect during an allegedly brutal interrogation by Sawahan Police on April 1 has cast a light on what human rights groups call the widespread torture and abuse of drug addicts by Indonesian police.

Deny Saputra reportedly collapsed after being beaten and repeatedly electrocuted with a stun gun at a police station in Surabaya's Sawahan subdistrict on April 1. The man's friend Decky Angga Setiawan said he was subjected to similar abuse as police officers tortured eight suspects detained after testing positive for crystal methamphetamine use.

"We were electrocuted with a stun gun on our back and neck," Decky told the Jakarta Globe from his jail cell in Surabaya's Medaeng Prison. "Denny collapsed and died. It happened at 2 a.m. on April 2. Afterward, the police stopped the torture."

Sawahan Police have denied the allegations, pointing to the results of an official autopsy listing the cause of death as complications resulting from an unspecified illness. The officers involved have been questioned and cleared by the internal affairs department, Sawahan Police chief Comr. Manang Soebeti said.

"Deny died because he was ill," Manang said. "The investigation of the police internal affairs division has refuted the suspect's claims. It is his right to speak. We're ready to be investigated."

A local human rights group has called for an independent autopsy. "If the family allows it, we will demand another autopsy to investigate Deny's cause of death," said Rudhy Wedhasmara, a member of East Java Action, which focuses on the abuse of narcotics suspects.

The organization recorded 26 instances of police torture and abuse of drug suspects in East Java between 2007 and 2011, Rudhy said. The numbers only tell part of the story, he said, explaining that most instances of police abuse go unreported. "That data [suffers from] the iceberg phenomenon," Rudhy said. "Most drug addicts were abused by the officers, but only a few reveal it."

Amnesty International documented several allegations of torture and abuse in their most recent report, writing that "police were repeatedly accused of human rights violations, including excessive use of force and firearms, and torture and other ill-treatment."

Allegations of torture are rarely investigated and the few cases brought to court often fail to bring those responsible to justice, Amnesty International continued.

"Internal and external police accountability mechanisms failed to adequately deal with cases of abuses committed by police, and investigations into human rights violations were rare," the report read.

When the cases are brought to trial, the state rarely takes full responsibility for the actions of police and security forces, a separate report by the Asian Human Rights Commission found.

The Hong Kong-based organization investigated 40 instances of "torture, custodial death and extrajudicial killings from period 2005 to present," and determined that while "there is progress in prosecution of cases... the State continuously denies taking full responsibility for them."

Recently, immigration officers were accused of abusing children at Indonesian detention centers by the New York-based Human Rights Watch in a report titled "Barely Surviving: Detention, Abuse, Neglect of Migrant Children in Indonesia."

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 100 detainees, recording claims "that guards tied up or gagged detainees, beat them with sticks, burned them with cigarettes and administered electric shocks."

Herawan Sukoaji, deputy spokesman at the immigration directorate general, denied the claims, calling the report "imbalanced."