Jokowi’s hardline policy on executions may be imperiling the fight to save hundreds of Indonesian migrants on death row.
What a difference a few months make. Last year, thousands of Indonesians collected coins in a last-minute attempt to save a migrant worker, Satinah, from imminent execution while on death row in Saudi Arabia. The campaign galvanized the country, led to a trending hashtag #savesatinah, and forced then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to intervene and
pay the remainder of the blood money to get Satinah taken off death row.
Today, it is the world that is campaigning against Indonesia’s new administration, led by President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, and its use of the death penalty against foreign citizens in its fight against drug trafficking. Even more worrisome, the government’s insistence on using the death penalty may be imperiling the ongoing fight to save the lives of hundreds of other Indonesians like Satinah, still on death row all around the world.
A Vulnerable Population
“In Saudi Arabia there are 48 [on death row], in Qatar one, in China 22 and in Malaysia 288,” said Anis Hidayah, executive director of Migrant Care. “Right now, eighteen of them are awaiting execution. Four in Malaysia, five in Saudi Arabia and nine in China.”
Indonesia’s migrant workers form one of the world’s largest foreign worker populations, numbering, according to Migrant Care, 6.5 million, and find themselves primarily in countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Qatar, that have terrible human rights records and justice systems that do not provide fair trials to migrants. Reports by international NGOs including Amnesty International and HRW in the past years
demonstrate the peril that many Indonesian migrant workers face. Sexual exploitation, torture, and even modern slavery are not uncommon.
Just last year, the country was galvanized by
the story of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, a domestic worker from Central Java who was tortured for eight months in Hong Kong, considered a “safe” country, and then sent home without receiving any pay.
The actions of the Indonesian government in the past – calls for leniency, willingness to pay blood money, politicians making personal interventions to foreign governments, and even threats of diplomatic revenge, are not too dissimilar to the actions taken in recent weeks by Australia, Brazil, and the Netherlands on behalf of their citizens who are facing the firing squad in Indonesia.
“Indonesia usually spends a lot of energy, money and effort to save any Indonesian citizens on death row abroad,” said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), adding that he was shocked no one told Jokowi about the potential consequences of using the death penalty before December’s executions.
It is likely, with hundreds of citizens on death row abroad, that in 2015, there will be another situation like Satinah’s where the country will try to apply international pressure to save an Indonesian from execution. This time, however, Indonesia may find that it has fewer friends prepared to stand with it. Already, the use of the death penalty last month has hurt its relations with Brazil, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Malawi, and Vietnam. If plans move forward with the next round of executions, which includes citizens from France and Australia, despite pleas from clemency from civil society groups, foreign leaders, and human rights activists, it is almost certain cries of hypocrisy will be loud in the future.
Source: The Diplomat, Nithin Coca, March 3, 2015
