The death penalty does nothing to hinder the drug trade, a leading Indonesian cleric has said.
Speaking after Indonesia’s government announced the imminent execution of 15 prisoners, Fr Paulus Christian Siswantoko, executive secretary of the Indonesian bishops’ Justice and Peace commission, said, “the death penalty is not a deterrent to drug dealers. Many of them continue to work from behind bars”.
Arguing that Indonesia’s justice system condemns the innocent and does not guarantee the punishment of the guilty, the priest said there is “no valid data or information indicating that the death penalty has reduced or minimised the drug business in Indonesia”.
Calling for the death penalty to be annulled, the priest said “the legal system in Indonesia is rotten. There are no guarantees that the defendants are the people who really should be condemned, because the legal and bureaucratic system is a chain of corruption”.
To tackle what President Joko Widodo has called a “national emergency”, Indonesia has among the world’s strictest anti-drug laws, under which 66 people have been executed since 1979.
