URGENT APPEAL for 5 prisoners at risk of imminent execution in Indonesia

Amnesty Interntional

Five death row prisoners in Indonesia have been moved to separate cells and are believed to be at risk of imminent execution. Indonesia’s new government has said publicly that it plans to carry out the five executions this year and 20 more in 2015.

On 28 November 2014, the Junior Attorney General for General Crimes, Basyuni Masyarif, announced that the government was planning to execute five individuals currently on death row, who have exhausted all of their legal and clemency appeals, before the end of 2014. He also stated that another 20 executions are scheduled for 2015.

Around the 3rd Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ministerial Meeting on Drug Matters in Jakarta on 3 December, the Indonesian Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, stated that the President will not grant clemency to at least 64 individuals who have been sentenced to death for drug-related crimes and that there are plans to execute them.

News reports on 4 December indicate that one of the five individuals facing imminent execution is detained in Tangerang, Banten province, and two others in Batam, Riau Islands Province. All three appear to be convicted of drug-related crimes. Two other prisoners, who appear to have been sentenced to death for murder, are imprisoned in Nusakambangan, Central Java province. Reports also suggest that they have now been isolated from other prisoners, three days before executions are due to take place, as required by law. No executions have been carried out so far in 2014. There are at least 130 people under sentence of death in Indonesia.

International law guarantees the right of all prisoners under sentence of death to apply for pardon or commutation of the sentence and allows for the imposition of the death penalty only for the “most serious crimes”. Drug-related offenses do not meet this threshold.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Indonesia resumed executions on 14 March 2013 after a four year hiatus, when Adami Wilson, a 48-year-old Malawian national, was put to death for drug-trafficking. Four other people were executed during 2013, three for murder and one other, a foreign national, for drug-trafficking. The resumption of executions was a shocking and regressive step after years of positive indications that Indonesia was moving away from the death penalty. In October 2012, after news that the then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono commuted the death sentence of a drug trafficker, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa had said the move was part of a wider push away from the use of the death penalty in Indonesia. Also in 2012, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of a drug trafficker to 12 years’ imprisonment and the President granted clemency for two others who had been sentenced to death for drug trafficking.

Issue(s): Death Penalty, Legal concern, Imminent execution
UA: 305/14 Issue Date: 5 December 2014
Country: Indonesia

Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!

EITHER send a short email to uan@aiusa.org with "UA 305/14" in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent.

OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.

Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the below date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan@aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please write immediately in English, Indonesian or your own language:
* Urging the authorities to immediately halt plans to execute the five individuals ;
* Calling on them to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty and to commute all death sentences to terms of imprisonment;
* Urging them to ensure that full information about the use of the death penalty in Indonesia is available publicly and that relatives and lawyers are given full access to death-row prisoners and information about their cases;
* Pointing out that the decision to resume executions has set Indonesia against the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty and the country’s own progress.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 16 JANUARY 2014 TO:

President of the Republic of Indonesia
H. E. Joko Widodo
Istana Merdeka
Jakarta Pusat 10110, Indonesia
Fax: 011 62 21 386 4816 /011 62 21 344 2233
Email: ppid@setkab.go.id
Salutation: Dear President

And copies to:
National Human Rights Commission
Chairperson
Hafid Abbas
Jl. Latuharhari No. 4B, Menteng
Jakarta Pusat 10310, Indonesia
Fax: 011 62 21 392 5227

Attorney General
H. M. Prasetyo
Jl. Sultan Hasanuddin No. 1, Jakarta Selatan, Jakarta 12160, Indonesia
Fax: 011 62 21 722 1269 / 011 62 21 725 0213
Email:
humas_puspenkum@yahoo.co.uk
Salutation: Dear Attorney General

Also send copies to: H.E. Ambassador Budi Bowoleksono, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia
2020 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036 - USA
Fax: 1 202 775 5365 I Phone: 1 202 775 5200 I Email: ikuhn@embassyofindonesia.org or
www.embassyofindonesia.org/contactform/contact-form.php

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