Jakarta Globe, Jun 05, 2015
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| Flowers are placed outside the Indonesian consulate in Sydney on April 29, following the execution of two Australian drug convicts Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia. Indonesia executed seven foreign drug convicts including two Australians by firing squad on April 29, causing Canberra to withdraw its ambassador over the 'cruel' punishment. (AFP Photo/Saeed Khan) |
Jakarta.
Prominent academics and experts have called on the Indonesian government to end
the death penalty for drug offenses and commit to proven public health
approaches to address drug use.
In an open
letter to President Joko Widodo published in the June 6 edition of the British
health journal The Lancet, the group called for the discontinuation of
“strategies which have been found to be counterproductive such as involuntary
rehabilitation and the death penalty.”
“A close
examination of the nature and extent of drug use in Indonesia reveals
substantial gaps in knowledge and a scarcity of evidence to support forced
rehabilitation and the punitive, law enforcement-led approach favored by the government,”
the letter said.
“The
Indonesian government has shown increased commitment to addressing drug use and
guaranteeing the well-being of its citizens, but in order to achieve this it
must choose public health and harm reduction strategies,” Prof. Dr. Irwanto of
the HIV and AIDS Research Center at Jakarta’s Atma Jaya University and a
veteran drug and HIV researcher, one of the signatories of the letter, said in
a statement.
“The
current drug war approach has been a proven failure around the globe, even
causing more harm than good,” he added.
Dr.
Ignatius Praptoraharjo, a researcher at the Center for Health Policy and
Management at the School of Medicine at Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University,
said the government had sidelined effective approaches to drug use in favor of
a more punitive stance.
“We know
what works: we already have the evidence and have been implementing
health-focused programs that work in Indonesia since the early 2000s,” he said.
“We have an ethical obligation to provide our citizens with options that save
lives, such as needle syringe programs, opioid substitution therapy and
community-based, voluntary drug treatment.
“But
despite the proven success of these interventions, political commitment and
funds are lacking, and current punitive strategies in Indonesia do not provide
enough space for meaningful health programs. Our limited funds are instead
being used to bolster fear-based approaches, which effectively drive people in
need further away from health programs,” Ignatius said.
The letter
said there was “evidence that criminalization of people who use drugs and
punitive law-enforcement approaches have failed to reduce the prevalence of
drug use and are fueling the HIV epidemic.”
The group
also raised “serious concerns about the validity” of the figures for drug use
and drug-related deaths frequently cited by the president and other officials
to justify their hard-line approach to anti-narcotics enforcement, and urged
the president to invest in more accurate data collection.
The group
said it was concerned that the government was using the estimates as the basis
for national policies without providing sufficient opportunity for independent
peer review.
“Obtaining
valid estimates of drug use is not an easy, straightforward process, yet we
need to make sure that national policies are based on evidence that is
thoroughly peer-reviewed and transparent,” Atma Jaya’s Irwanto said. “Each
human life matters. Productive human lives may be compromised by misguided
policies.”
Dr. Kemal
Siregar, the secretary general of the National AIDS Commission, warned that
drug users faced increasing stigma, discrimination and human rights violations
as punitive drug control measures trumped public health.
“HIV
infections will continue to rise as long as drug users continue to live in fear
of arrest or placement in involuntary rehabilitation,” he said.
The
signatories to the open letter, ranging from public health experts and
researchers, to theologists and human rights activists, argued in favor of establishing
an independent, multi-sectoral committee on drug use comprising relevant
government agencies, ministries, researchers, service providers and community
leaders tasked with reviewing available drug-related data, setting priorities,
recommending evidence-informed actions and monitoring progress.
“As people
who use drugs, we have seen and experienced for ourselves that repressive and
punitive approaches have exacerbated drug-related deaths and harms such as HIV
and hepatitis C transmission,” said Edo Agustian, the national coordinator of
the Indonesian Drug Users Network.
“We urge
the government to work together with drug-using communities, academics and
other stakeholders to build a more effective response before any more lives are
lost,” he said.
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