Kennial Caroline Laia, Jakarta – Yeni remembers the day in 2011 when police stormed her home and arrested her brother on trumped-up charges. "It was never clear why they arrested him," she says.
Once in police custody, she says, he was tortured and killed. "I wanted justice. Why did my brother die? Why did the police kill him? What had he done?" she says. "So I took the case to the court. But during the trial I realized one thing: that justice is hard to find in this country."
Only two low-ranking police officers were charged with killing Yeni's brother. They were eventually convicted and sentenced to two and five years in prison.
Stories like Yeni's remain common despite Indonesia's claims to democracy; a culture of impunity for the security forces remains deeply entrenched in a country that only emerged from authoritarian rule in 1998, with observers warning of a growing nostalgia for a return to the iron-fisted ways of the strongman Suharto.
During his 32-year reign, Suharto relied primarily on the military to silence his critics. But since the start of the reform era 16 years ago, the military has been stripped of its powers over civilian policing, while the police have only grown in strength – and in their use of violence.
The police were responsible for 80 out of 108 recorded cases of torture of civilians between June 2013 and June 2014, according to a report published on Thursday by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), a human rights watchdog.
Prison officials were responsible for 18 cases, and the military for 10, the report said. In all, Kontras said, there were 283 victims: 20 died, 155 were severely injured, and one has gone missing.
The total number of cases is up from 100 in the 2012-2013 period, 84 from 2011-2012, and 28 from 2010-2011. "Violence has long been a habit for law enforcement officers in this country," says Haris Azhar, the Kontras coordinator. "For them, the use of violence and torture is like a sanctioned shortcut."
He says much of the violence takes the form of torture of the victim during interrogation, usually to extract a confession, as in the case of Yeni's brother.
"So even before the person has been formally charged or named a suspect, they're already prone to falling victim to police brutality," Haris says. "This is a serious issue that both the police force and the government need to pay attention to. But if they continue to overlook these cases, the violence will never end."
The police have acknowledged the problem, but insist that instances of police brutality are far from common, and that the actions of a handful of rogue officers should not reflect on the police force as a whole.
"It's certainly true that some of our personnel have deviated," says Adj. Sr. Comr. Jayadi, the head of the general crimes sub-unit at the National Police's detectives' unit. He cites the case of Yeni's brother, saying it was an incident that "really shook us all."
"But I have to remind people that the crimes that these kinds of officers perpetrate are not a legitimate reflection of the Indonesian police force as an institution," he says. "The National Police is an institution that stands strictly against the violation of human rights and prevailing laws," Jayadi adds.
He concedes that the police brutality still being committed today has its roots in Suharto's New Order era, when the police force was part of the dreaded military. "It's certainly not an excuse, but there's no denying that there's a sort of cultural holdover from military that persists in the police force until now," he says.
Jayadi says that unlike in the past, when police brutality was shielded by impunity, there is now a mechanism in place to duly punish errant officers. "If any of our personnel commits a violation, the police will investigate it and hand down the necessary sanctions, depending on whether they face a criminal conviction," he says.
He also welcomes reports from the public about instances of police brutality, promising that the police will be serious about following up on any complaints.
"If we compare the situation we have now with the situation during the New Order, the mechanism for filing a complaint is much better now. But the public has to be proactive in reporting any violence to us, to help us tackle this issue," Jayadi says.
Kontras's Haris says an important part of the solution is to ramp up the pace of reforms in the police force. "Both the National Police and the Indonesian Military must ensure that the internal mechanisms they have in place to deal with allegations of torture and ill-treatment of civilians are properly enforced, and that a mechanism of accountability exists," he says.
He adds the same goes for the Justice Ministry, which is in charge of the country's prisons. He also says government oversight bodies – such as the National Police Commission, the Indonesia Ombudsman, Judicial Commission (for the country's judges) and the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) – need to be strengthened.
Haris also urges the government, which has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.
The latter, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2002, supplements the 1987 convention by establishing an international inspection system for places of detention.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-brutality-torture-still-rife-activists/