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LBH Jakarta invites relatives to challenge police's shoot-on-sight policy

Source
Jakarta Post - July 19, 2018

Fachrul Sidiq, Jakarta – The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) encouraged the relatives of criminal suspects that had been shot by police to challenge the latter's shoot-on-sight policy, which had resulted in the deaths of 11 suspects and severely injured 41 others.

LBH Jakarta opened on Wednesday a post dedicated to collecting reports from families whose members had been affected by the policy, including those that had the victims of extrajudicial killings.

"We received a call from the family of a detained robbery suspect who feared getting gunned down," Shaleh al-Ghifari, a lawyer with LBH Jakarta, said on Wednesday. "We opened this post as an attempt to assist families in their quest for justice," he added.

Earlier this month, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Idham Aziz instructed his underlings to take firm measures against suspected street criminals, including by shooting them, as part of their effort to secure the city ahead of the Asian Games, which will kick off in the city on Aug. 18.

Concerns were also raised following robberies in which several government officials were victims. More than 2,000 people have been arrested and 320 of them have been named suspects in the past two weeks, LBH Jakarta reported.

The institution said the policy had been "exaggerated" and had the potential to be "misused", given the high number of suspects that had been killed without standing trial.

Extrajudicial killings contravene National Police Chief Regulation No. 8/2009 on the implementation of human rights standards and principles in the organizing of police duties, Shaleh said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/07/18/lbh-jakarta-invites-relatives-to-challenge-polices-shoot-on-sight-policy.html

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