06 Feb Indonesia uses faulty drug stats to justify death penalty
Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s claim of a national drug “emergency” that necessitates the death penalty for drug crimes is based on questionable statistics.
Jokowi, as he is popularly known in Indonesia, recently cited some astonishing figures: 4.5 million Indonesians need to be rehabilitated due to their illicit or illegal drug use, and 40 to 50 young people die each day due to the same cause.
Jokowi argues that applying a no-compromise, punitive approach is necessary to combat the state of emergency represented by these numbers. He ordered the killing of six drug traffickers on death row by firing squad last month, and vowed to reject clemency requests from more than 60 people on death row for drug-related charges.
Jokowi ignores protests from human rights groups and pleas from the Australian government, whose citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, members of the Bali Nine drug ring, are facing imminent execution.
But the Jokowi administration’s attempt to present the death penalty for drug offenders as a policy based on evidence falls flat on one necessary ground: the evidence.
The figures quoted by the president and parroted by national officials and media outlets are based on studies with questionable methods and vague measures.
Government advisers cherry-picked the figures to lend credibility to a “national emergency” and ultimately justify an ineffective but politically convenient policy.
Source: Rappler