2 encouraging developments regarding the death penalty have come to light in Indonesia in the past week.
First, it has emerged that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono granted clemency to 4 people on death row for narcotics crimes and reduced their sentences to life imprisonment.
These decisions show a willingness to grant clemency at odds with previous practice and rhetoric. Before these decisions were revealed, there had been only 1 other known case of clemency for a capital offence in the past 30 years and that was in exceptional circumstances.
As criticism of the clemency decisions mounted, Minister for Law and Human Rights Amir Syamsuddin disclosed that of 128 decisions on clemency for narcotics crimes (not all of which were death penalty cases) President Yudhoyono has granted clemency 19 times. This includes the 4 death penalty cases, which involve 3 Indonesians and 1 foreigner, as well as clemency for 10 juveniles.
The 2nd encouraging change is increasing acknowledgement by Indonesian cabinet ministers of a link between overseas advocacy for Indonesians facing the death penalty and domestic decisions.
As I outlined in a Lowy Institute analysis A Key Domino? Indonesia's Death Penalty Politics, Indonesia has energetically advocated for leniency for more than 200 Indonesians facing the death penalty abroad, following the public outcry and intense criticism of the government triggered by the execution of an Indonesian domestic worker in Saudi Arabia in June 2011.
Source: The Interpreter, October 18, 2012
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