INDONESIA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Indonesia is a multiparty ...

INDONESIA 3
two unarmed Freeport security personnel. On October 14, unknown attackers
killed three Freeport workers and burned their vehicle.
In June Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who was previously convicted in the 2004
poisoning of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, appealed his conviction with
the Central Jakarta District Court, claiming new evidence. In 2008 the South
Jakarta District Court acquitted retired army general Muchdi Purwoprandjono on
charges of planning Munir’s murder. In 2009 the Supreme Court upheld the
acquittal and remanded the case to the district court. In September the Attorney
General’s Office (AGO) stated no further action in the case against Muchdi
Purwopranjono was warranted, despite claims from civil society organizations that
new evidence against Muchdi merited review of his acquittal.
b. Disappearance
The government and civil society organizations reported little progress in
accounting for persons who disappeared in previous years or in prosecuting those
responsible for such disappearances. The criminal code does not specifically
criminalize disappearance.
In 2009 the House of Representatives (DPR) approved the formation of an ad hoc
court to pursue investigations of and possible prosecutions for the 1998 abductions
of prodemocracy activists. Despite this approval in 2009, at year’s end, the
government had not established this ad hoc court.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment
The constitution states that every person shall have the right to be free from torture
and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The law criminalizes the use
of violence or force by officials to elicit a confession, punishable by up to four
years in prison, but the criminal code does not specifically criminalize torture. In
previous years law enforcement officials widely ignored and rarely were tried
under this statute. More recently the government made some efforts to hold
members of the security forces responsible for acts of torture but these efforts did
not constitute full accountability. In 2007 the UN special rapporteur on torture
reported that torture was common in certain jails and used to obtain confessions,
punish suspects, and seek information that incriminated others in criminal activity.
Torture typically occurred soon after detention. There were reports detainees were
beaten with fists, sticks, cables, iron bars, and hammers. Some detainees
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011
United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor