INDONESIA: Police officers torture a young woman to force her husband’s surrender

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) continues to receive reports of police torture in Indonesia, the latest of which involves the illegal arrest and torture of a young woman by Jakarta Metropolitan police officers and sector police in Natar, South Lampung. The woman was allegedly tortured over two days with electric shocks to obtain information in a criminal investigation involving her husband. 

CASE DETAILS: 

According to information that we have received from the family of the victim, the Lampung Legal Aid Institute and KontraS, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, on 24 July 2009 at around 3am, police officers from Natar and Jakarta illegally arrested Mrs. Muliyana, 24, at her home in Natar, and took her away in a police vehicle. During the trip to the Natar sector police station an officer of the Jakarta Metropolitan police (Kepolisian Daerah Metro Jakarta Raya/Polda Metrojaya), Mr. Eva Agustina, interrogated Mrs. Muliyana regarding a bank robbery at BNI in Jakarta that her husband may have been involved with. Mrs. Muliyana said that she did not know about the robbery. In response she was electrocuted by Agustina six times, using three different parts of her right arm, as seen in the photo above (closer shots can be viewed here: Photo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). Two more electroshocks were used on the victim while the car sat parked in front of the sector police station.

The interrogation continued at the station at around 3.30am, during which Mrs. Muliyana was beaten and pulled around by her hair, while being asked for information about the location of stolen money. By 4.10am no information had been obtained from the victim, and she was reportedly taken to her brother’s house in a police vehicle. During this trip a police officer Ade Ros allegedly hit the detainee in the face another three times and pulled at her hair. At 2pm the next day she was re-arrested and driven to Jakarta, a trip of a few hundred kilometers by car and ferry. 

After arriving at the Jakarta Metropolitan Police Station the victim was once more kept in the transport vehicle on station premises (next to the room of the criminal investigator or ditreskrimum) and electrocuted by Agustina. In the meantime her husband, Mr. Azwan Effendi had surrendered to the North Sumatera police after arriving in Medan and had been taken to the same station in Jakarta to be interrogated alongside his wife. 

We are told that at around 2.10pm on 25 July Mrs. Muliyana was taken to the second floor of Unit III of the Criminal and Violence department (kejahatan dan kekerasan/Jatanras) where Agustina electrocuted her again in front her husband. The shocks were applied to her stomach. As a result of the interrogation we are told that Effendi’s alleged partners in the bank robbery were arrested by the same officers.  

The two detainees continued to be interrogated about the missing money until 6pm, with electric shocks reportedly used every 15 minutes. No new information about the money was reportedly obtained. The police then kept Mrs. Muliyana in detention at the station for five more days until July 30 when, with no evidence to warrant further detention, she was released at 1pm.

Since Mrs. Muliyana’s release she has continued to receive intimidating telephone calls from persons claiming to be Jakarta Metropolitan police officers. A month ago three officers came to her house and demanded that she give a statement for the investigation report into the complaint that she made at the station. She refused out of fear. The harassment has led the victim to file a report with the internal disciplinary unit of the national police headquarters, with the help of NGOs.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

The AHRC has documented a number of recent cases of police torture in Indonesia and it is evident that the practice continues to be routinely used. One major reason for this is the lack of its criminalisation, which means that although torture is banned in the constitution, the penal code does currently not list torture as a crime and no punishment is attached to the act. 

Our latest cases involve police torturing demonstrating students (AHRC-UAC-135-2009), who were then jailed; no action has been taken against the officers. In the same month, July, a man in Aceh emerged from police custody covered in stab wounds and died in hospital shortly afterwards; no charges are yet being faced by police (AHRC-UAC-105-2009). In April a man in Central Java died after a short spell in detention, and his wounds indicated severe torture and were not at all consistent with the autopsy (AHRC-UAC-111-2009).

As a state party to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Right (ICCPR), the country is obliged to respect and fulfill the standards laid out, such as article 2 (which deals with a victim’s right to remedy), article 9 paragraph 5 (regarding compensation for arbitrary arrest and detention), and article 7 (the right to freedom from torture). As a party to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Woman, the country is obliged to seriously investigate claims of abuse against women in custody, and to take adequate measures to protect women in custody. As a party to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Indonesian government is obliged to criminalise torture and to put enforcement mechanisms in place that will help put an end to it. These obligations continue to be soundly ignored. For more information on the use and legal status of torture in Indonesia, please refer to our anti-torture campaign website.  

It should be added that earlier this year the chief of the Indonesian National Police enacted the new Regulation No. 8, which deals with the duties of police according to human rights principles and standards. It prohibits the use of torture under any circumstances. 

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please send your letters to the authorities listed below to call for an impartial investigation into the arbitrary arrest and torture of Mrs. Muliyana; for disciplinary and legal action to be taken against the officers proven guilty; and for adequate compensation to be arranged for her.

The AHRC has written to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture and to the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences about this case.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER