Song & Silence

The broader problem of police abuse in Indonesia has recently received quite a bit of attention. In November 2007, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture conducted a mission to Indonesia, visiting police stations and prisons around the country and meeting with experts and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Torture is “routine practice” in Jakarta and other large cities in Java, he reported, and the conditions of detention in police stations amount to “degrading and inhuman treatment.” The absence of transparency and monitoring systems to hold police accountable for torture results, he said, “in a system of quasi-total impunity.” Following the Special Rapporteur’s mission, the Jakarta Legal Institute (LBH), a leading Indonesian civil rights NGO, published a survey in August 2008 finding that a majority of those in police detention were subject to physical abuse.

The Jangkar report gives a more detailed picture of how drug users experience the abuse documented by these two reports, and provides insight into some of its root causes. It also raises concerns about Indonesia’s approach to fighting the rapidly spreading HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Until 1998, the Indonesian police were a part of the military force under the command of President Suharto, who used force to quell dissent. Since that time, as part of broader efforts at security sector reform, Indonesia’s police force has engaged in an extensive process of restructuring, separating from the military, and establishing itself as an independent public agency with new professional standards. While this process has led to some notable achievements, many police officers themselves acknowledge that it is far from complete. The country’s new police force faces an important challenge with rapidly escalating drug dependence in Indonesia. At the same time, injection drug use appears to be one of the key vectors of HIV transmission in the country, and prevalence among drug users is rising. Indonesia’s public security forces and public health agencies urgently need effective and pragmatic responses to drug dependence and HIV.

Drug use in Indonesia
Drug use in Indonesia is, by all accounts, spreading rapidly. The number of drug users is debated: some health experts estimate between 200,000 and 500,000, while Indonesia’s anti-narcotics chief estimated there were 3.2 million drug users in Indonesia. Staff of Indonesian IDU NGOs estimate the number may be as many as 4 million today.

Indonesia’s response to drug use, like that of many other countries, has been punitive, with the launch of a national war on drugs and moral rhetoric condemning drug use. “Instead of making this country a heaven for drug traffickers, we will promise them hell,” threatened the chairman of the National Narcotics Bureau (BNN), Inspector General I Made Mangku Pastika. The drug war has included sweeping arrests and lengthy prison sentences for both traffickers and individuals found in possession of narcotics. Those found guilty of trafficking face more than nine years in prison or, in certain circumstances, the death sentence. Those found in possession of even a small amount of narcotics may serve up to nine years in prison, including pre-trial detention periods that can last months. Indonesian laws do not provide guidelines for sentencing based on the amount of narcotics in possession, so judges exercise wide discretion in drug cases, often issuing draconian sentences.

Lengthy and arbitrary sentencing results in overcrowding in Indonesia’s prisons. Absolute numbers vary: According to the BNN, the number of drug-related cases increased from 17,355 in 2006 to 22,630 cases in 2008. A UN statement in October 2008 estimated that 28,000 drug users were incarcerated at that time. However, it appears that these numbers may underestimate the problem. The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights reported in April 2006 that of 89,000 prisoners housed in 396 prisons, most had been convicted of narcotics-related crimes. Only one prison in Bali offers methadone on a pilot basis, reaching 33 prisoners by June 2006, and no prison facilities offer needle exchange.

HIV/AIDS among drug users
HIV prevalence is on the rise in Indonesia, and its rise directly parallels the increase in drug use. Indonesia’s “war on drugs” approach has apparently been unsuccessful in curbing the spread of the disease. In late 1998, HIV prevalence was below 0.1%, but it began to increase rapidly in 1999-2000. By 2006, the estimated prevalence was 0.2%, or about 193,000 people. In 2008, the United Nations estimated 290,000 infections. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Indonesian Ministry of Health, roughly half of all drug users are HIV positive. About 46% of people living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia are injection drug users.

Antiretroviral (ARV) treatment is available in Indonesia, though according to WHO and UNAIDS, ARV treatment was provided to only 6,600 people in 2005, constituting only 15% of the total number who need ARVs.

Drug user NGOs report that drugs are widely available in Indonesian prisons, while measures to prevent the spread of HIV are not. Incarceration may facilitate the spread of HIV. Many people who are HIV positive do not receive ARV treatment in prison; according to a media report, one prison is apparently distributing Chinese herbal medicines instead. Outside of prison, national laws limit which agencies may distribute clean needles, and carrying a needle is illegal without a prescription. According to police, under national regulations, police may not distribute clean needles even if they wish to do so.

Indonesia’s punitive approach to drug use hampers government efforts to fight the AIDS epidemic. When drug users know they are at risk of arrest and may face torture, extortion and long prison sentences, they are much less likely to come forward to participate in government and NGO-run HIV prevention programs. Instead, they are driven underground and are more likely to engage in unsafe practices such as needle-sharing and unsafe sex.

Beginning in the mid-late 2000s, drug users and former drug users around the country started mobilizing their communities at the grassroots level to fight HIV/AIDS. They founded dozens of small NGOs to conduct outreach to drug users, established needle exchange programs, and began advocating locally and nationally for access to ARV treatment, harm reduction policies, and HIV/AIDS information. With limited resources, this growing network of small NGOs has achieved a great deal locally, persuading local hospitals to increase their stocks of ARV medicines, establishing kiosks with HIV/AIDS information, and placing dozens of peer educators on the streets for outreach to drug users around the country.

Methodology
Jaringan Aksi Nasional Penguran Dampak Buruk Narkoba Suntik, or Jangkar, is the largest of several national networks of drug user NGOs. Jangkar’s network spans 75 organizations around the country, including groups of IDUs and migrant workers. Jangkar defines itself as “the medium for communication among the institutions or individuals who have concerns about the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission among drug users, especially those who intravenously inject drugs.” These groups rely on the efforts of an extensive network of field organizers, most of them former drug users themselves, who have strong contacts with current and former IDUs.

Beginning in 2007, Jangkar launched an extensive project to document rights abuses, including police abuse against injection drug users in Indonesia and discrimination against injection drug users in access to health services. Member groups in 12 cities participated in training workshops that introduced rights violation documentation standards. The sampling relied on the existing networks of field organizers, who interviewed drug users on the street and in field offices.

Jangkar used convenience sampling for this report, and asked those interviewed to refer others to be interviewed as well. Interviewers, most of whom were field organizers, were instructed to interview any drug users with whom they had contact in local communities, but were also instructed to avoid weighting the sample toward those who had experienced abuse. In practice, it is likely that field organizers mostly interviewed those who already knew and trusted them, and to some degree, interview subjects may have self-selected for those who had some grievance. On the other hand, according to Agus Triwahyuono, who coordinated the research project, some drug users who did experience abuses were reluctant to participate in the interviews, saying that they believed the interviewer might be “a spy for the police.”

To protect the anonymity of subjects, the interviewers used codes to identify them on all materials. Interview subjects were first interviewed using a simple questionnaire that asked only for biographical data (age, gender, occupation, educational level, and marital status). Interviewers also asked if subjects had experienced either police abuse or discrimination in access to health services. Those who said they had were then asked to share their experience in more detail, using a second interview form that asked for date, time, perpetrator, place of the abuse, details of the abuse, as well as physical, psychological and social effects on the victim. Interviewers used audio recordings to back up their written interviews.

In addition, the author spent about two weeks in Jakarta in October 2008, meeting with scholars, international donors, UN officials, and senior police officers. The author also met with IDU NGOs from Jakarta, East Java, and Central Java, and held four consultations with a total of roughly 20 NGOs that work with IDU groups on the issue of police abuse against injection drug users. This article draws on those meetings as well as on the Jangkar report.

Research findings
The majority of the injection drug users Jangkar interviewed were educated and unmarried young men with some form of employment.

Of the 1,106 respondents, 985 (89%) were male. According to Jangkar, finding female interview subjects was challenging; this likely reflects the actual gender breakdown in the IDU population.

Eighty-nine percent (987) of those interviewed had a senior high school-level education or above. Sixty percent (668) of the interviewees were single (never married). Slightly more than three-quarters, or 846, were between the ages of 25 and 34. Thirty-seven percent of those interviewed were unemployed, while 44 percent described themselves as “self-employed”.

While researchers did not attempt to confirm the details of individual accounts, commonalities in respondents’ experiences indicate the widespread nature of police abuse.

Sixty-two percent of those interviewed reported experiencing physical abuse by the police. These incidents included beating of the feet, hands, chest, and head by officers using their hands, fists, and boots. In addition, several subjects said that police had beaten them with pistol butts, folded chairs, or blackjacks, and one reported being beaten with a wrench and the flat side of a metal saw. Others reported being burned with cigarettes or given some form of electrical shock. One subject said that police stabbed him with a hypodermic needle that broke off in his skin. Six percent of those interviewed reported sexual harassment or abuse, including inappropriate touching of women during street searches by male police officers.

According to the interview subjects, police abused IDUs for two reasons—to coerce a confession, or to extort bribes.

Coerced confessions
In many cases, subjects reported that police tortured them in an effort to obtain confessions. One man in his late 20s/early 30s, who said he was married and had a university-level education, described his arrest in Jakarta:

"Around 11 p.m. two policemen arrested me [at my friend’s house]. They accused me of selling putaw [low-grade heroin]. They searched me and my friend. They found nothing. After 30 minutes, three more policemen came. One of them was the Unit Head. I was taken to a car. In the car I was beaten up and my toenails were pulled out so that I would admit that I sold putaw. It lasted four hours."

In another case in Semarang, Central Java, a single man with a university education said he and his friends were beaten in an effort to compel them to sign a false confession:

"My eyes were covered with a bandage and I was taken to the police station. All of us were beaten up…We were also treated rudely when they were preparing the official report. They beat us up with a chair, rattan stick, and an iron ruler. The official report they made was not in line with the real events. We were not accompanied by any lawyer during the process. "

Corruption
Police departments are under-funded, and despite ongoing efforts to fight corruption in the government, injection drug users report that they are often asked for bribes. In 2007, Transparency International surveyed roughly one thousand Indonesian citizens and found that a majority said the police were the government agency most likely to take bribes, an assertion the police rejected.

Nonetheless, some of the Jangkar interviewees said that police beat them in order to extort “coordination fees,” or bribes. In the words of a married man between the ages of 35 and 44 from Surabaya, who admitted that he sold drugs:

"I was often arrested previously, but since there was no evidence I was released. My family often gave ransom to the police to release me. Each time I was caught by the police, I was tortured."

In Semarang, an injection drug user reported that he was beaten, threatened with a gun to his head, and released when he paid 20 million rupiah. In a case from South Sumatra, police spotted a package of heroin sitting on the dashboard of a car and took the driver and his friend to the police station:

"He asked for “coordination money” from us. Because we said that we had no money, he took our wallets. As he only got a little money from our wallets, he asked for [my friend’s] watch. I threatened the officer that I would report him to my uncle, who has a higher rank, but [the officer] only punched me. After he took the putaw and the watch we were finally released."

NGOs working with drug users and organizations providing legal services to them report that corruption is widespread throughout the criminal justice system. Lawyers say that drug users may be asked for bribes by prosecutors in exchange for lighter charges, and from judges in exchange for lighter sentences.

Drug users who requested medical treatment for injuries sustained during interrogation said they were sometimes refused, as in the case of this university-educated man in his late 20s or early 30s from Surabaya:

"They tried to make me tell them where I bought the putaw. I refused to give any information. The police got impatient and hit me. One of the policemen folded a chair and used it to beat me all over my body. I broke my left hand. I gave the information eventually, because I could not stand it anymore.

"On the way to the location [I had identified to the police], I begged them to take me to a hospital, but they laughed at me and said that I was fortunate that they had only broken my hand and did not shoot me in the kneecap."

Two drug users interviewed for the Jangkar report said that they were refused access to ARV treatment while in detention in the police station; they also said that police disclosed their HIV status to others.

In addition to physical abuse, respondents said that some police used threats to both drug users and their families, as well as public humiliation, to coerce confessions or extort bribes. Half of those interviewed reported some form of psychological abuse, including verbal abuse, being threatened with a gun, and other threats. In one case, an interviewee was forced to strip and submit to a search while standing on a public street.

When incidents of the kind described by the Jangkar report happen occasionally, they may be the fault of rogue officers. When they happen repeatedly, and take similar forms in a variety of locations and times, they point to a pattern that is broader than the problems of any single police station, officer, or province. Solutions that have worked in other countries include system-strengthening within the police force, and legal reforms to protect the rights of people in custody.

Addressing systemic problems
Police forces that transition from military to civilian control are often plagued by reports of police abuse. While Indonesia’s police have made strides in establishing themselves as an independent civilian force in the past ten years, international experts who have studied ways that other countries have effectively addressed police abuse recommend that the government also establish clearer systems for evaluation and promotion, systems for police accountability, an independent and transparent civilian complaint mechanism, and adequate staff compensation to remove financial incentives for corruption. The government should take steps to enforce the UN Convention Against Torture, which mandates several of these measures, and to ratify and implement the Optional Protocol of the Convention Against Torture.

Since 1998, Indonesian police have participated in an extensive process of security sector reform. The military has gradually removed itself from governance, and the police, in turn, have separated from the military. The new systems they have established include: clarifying the respective functions of the military and the police, creating a national Police Law, creating new codes of conduct, uniforms and ranks, and undergoing extensive training—overall an ambitious project, made even more challenging in the context of the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub frequented by tourists and the concomitant concerns about terrorism. Yet senior Indonesian police experts such as Adrianus Meliala note that progress has not included adequate steps to ensure accountability.

An independent mechanism within the police department to accept, investigate, and handle complaints from the public is a measure that has proven, in other countries, to reduce the number of abuse incidents. Currently, there are two such mechanisms in Indonesia, but by most accounts, neither functions effectively.

The National Police Commission (Kompolnas), which functions at the national headquarters level, is charged by law with advising the President on the budget and personnel of the police, and also accepts complaints from the public about the performance of the police. Profesi dan Pengamanan, (Probam), the Ethics and Discipline Division of the police, also accepts complaints orally or by letter. In addition, some chiefs have reportedly gone so far as distributing their own cell phone numbers to members of the community in order to collect reports of abuses.

Yet according to experts in the field and community lawyers, neither of these agencies have had the clout to hold police accountable. Currently, according to one lawyer who provides legal aid to those accused of crimes, “torture is considered as a mere disciplinary breach; thus, the perpetrator gets lenient punishment, and indeed only administrative penalties.” Moreover, neither Kompolnas nor Probam issues reports to the public on the number or outcome of these cases.

In addition, according to lawyers working with police abuse victims, Probam may require a higher standard of evidence to support complaints than is feasible in cases of torture by police officers. For instance, lawyers may be asked to produce witnesses or photographs to prove that torture actually happened. In Surabaya, lawyers report that police are using methods such as waterboarding and suffocation with plastic bags in order to avoid leaving marks. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, recommended in his report on Indonesia that the burden of proof in such cases should lie with the prosecution rather than the defense. He suggested that the law should require prosecutors to prove that abuse did not occur during interrogation, and recommended that police record or videotape confessions as evidence that they were obtained without force. Custody registers are also rarely used in Indonesian police stations, but they could help to guard against the problem some drug users report of friends “disappearing” into detention.

A second critical step in any program to deter abuse is the establishment of a clear system for evaluation and promotion of officers. Promotions should take into account a variety of factors, including the numbers of complaints against an officer. In Indonesia’s “war on drugs” environment, where there is intense pressure to increase the number of arrests and no other clear system for evaluation and promotion, officers may use violence in an effort to coerce confessions and raise the number of convictions.

A chronic lack of funding for the police force could be another cause of the extortion of bribes, though as one police officer asked rhetorically, “How much money will be enough?”

International support to date has largely focused on providing training to officers at every level of the system. Training will be important as the police work to develop an understanding of and respect for human rights, but without mechanisms in place—and proper funding—to create a framework that supports human rights in practice, training alone will not stop police abuse. Indonesia could draw on the experience of police forces in other countries to learn how they have established mechanisms within the police to prevent abuses of the kind detailed here.

Legal reform
While structural weaknesses within the police system are important to address, reforming the legal framework is in many ways even more critical. According to Indonesian legal experts and drug user advocates, priority areas for legal reform include: extremely long pre-trial detention periods, heavy reliance on confessions for evidence in court, barriers to access to legal counsel, and the difficulty of challenging illegal searches and detentions in court.

One of the key factors often leading to abuse in detention is the length of the detention period for drug users. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak recommends that

"As a matter of urgent priority, the period of police custody should be reduced to a time limit in line with international standards (maximum of 48 hours); after this period the detainees should be transferred to a pretrial facility under a different authority, where no further unsupervised contact with the interrogators or investigators should be permitted."

However, injection drug users in Indonesia can be legally detained for periods of up to eight or nine months before sentencing. If a suspect is facing a prison sentence of longer than nine years (i.e., for trafficking), she or he may be detained for up to 120 days, through a series of renewable detention periods. The prosecutor can then detain the suspect for up to an additional 110 days pending trial, and during the trial, the judge can detain the person for 150 days more. In a worst-case scenario, therefore, a suspect faces a potential detention period of eight to nine months before sentencing. In practice, lawyers say, most are detained for between two and four months.

A draft Narcotics Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Tentang Narkotika) currently under discussion provides an opportunity to bring detention periods into line with international standards; however, drug user advocates who have seen the bill say the current draft does not include the recommended reform.

A second important issue is the Indonesian courts’ reliance on confessions as sole or primary evidence, without placing the burden of proof on police and the prosecutor to show that these were obtained without coercion. Indonesia’s Criminal Procedure Law (KUHAP) does give individuals the right to remain silent and the right to be free from duress during interrogation. Furthermore, if a suspect or her lawyer alleges that torture was used, they should be able to obtain an independent medical evaluation; but in practice, according to drug user NGOs, only doctors working for the police do these evaluations.

Those charged with a crime should have the ability to challenge the legality of their detention in court. While this right currently exists, according to Manfred Nowak, it is rarely exercised in practice. In addition, a number of those interviewed for the Jangkar report said that their persons, homes, or cars had been searched without a legal warrant. Under Indonesia’s criminal law, victims do have the right to compensation for illegal arrest, detention, or asset seizure, but in practice, this right is rarely exercised.

Finally, exercising all these rights is challenging without access to legal counsel. Under the criminal law (KUHAP), law enforcement agencies are obliged to appoint legal counsel for a defendant facing 15 years’ or more imprisonment or the death penalty; for those who are impoverished and facing a sentence of five or more years, law enforcement agencies must also appoint legal counsel.

However, lawyers and IDU activists all reported that many drug users are reluctant to accept the services of a lawyer for two reasons: because the involvement of a lawyer may suggest to police and the prosecutor that the crime is more serious, and because it may signal to corrupt police that the detainee has financial resources. A staff person at Stigma, an NGO working with drug users, said that in five recent cases where Stigma offered to provide a lawyer free of charge, clients all refused the services. It may take some time to strengthen the legal system, and to educate the public, in order to reach the point where drug users feel able to exercise their rights under existing law.

Rehabilitation vs. prison
A beam of light in this otherwise bleak picture is that national policy provides judges with the option to sentence drug users to rehabilitation instead of prison. However, this is an option judges rarely exercise, and there are only 45 drug rehabilitation facilities in the country, not enough to meet the demand. International donors and Indonesian NGOs might consider partnering with the judiciary to hold workshops and provide educational materials on drug addiction, in order to make judges aware of the benefits of sentencing drug users to rehabilitation facilities.

Looking forward
There is no country in the world that has not been plagued by police abuse. As a marginalized group, drug users everywhere are vulnerable to these kinds of abuses; they may “disappear” into the prison system without causing a ripple in the social fabric. In the current political climate, in which the international war on terror and the war on drugs have degraded global rights standards, it is increasingly challenging to advocate for detainee rights or to combat torture.

Current efforts to draft a new Indonesian Narcotics Bill provide one opportunity for reform. At the same time though, social pressures, including the rise of conservative religious constituencies who view a punitive approach to drug use as a moral imperative, may create challenges for those advocating that drug dependence be treated as a medical condition rather than a moral failing. Finally, a widespread cultural acceptance of beating by police poses another obstacle to advocates fighting abuse.

Even in the best of circumstances, it is impossible to eradicate police abuse altogether. But the problem can be reduced, and police can create mechanisms to improve their own professionalism, protect human rights, and allow effective redress to victims. The stated commitment of Indonesia’s police to ongoing system reform and improvement of their professionalism creates openings to propose changes that could significantly reduce police abuse against drug users. At the same time, the accession of Indonesia to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and its review in 2009 by the UN Committee for Civil and Political Rights will provide Indonesia with opportunities to reform the Criminal Procedure Law and bring laws and practices into compliance with international human rights standards. These steps are not only critical to combating police abuse and to the continuing evolution of Indonesia’s new police force; they are also necessary steps in the fight against the twin epidemics of drug dependence and HIV/AIDS.

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