Rights body expects continued decline in violence by authorities

We expect that the rate of violence will continue to decline, and every official's behaviour will continue to improve.

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) expects a continued decline in the rate of violence committed by law enforcement authorities on civilians, Komnas HAM's Commissioner Mohammad Choirul Anam stated.

"We expect that the rate of violence will continue to decline, and every official's behaviour will continue to improve," he noted at a press conference on the condition of violence in 2020-2021 here on Monday.

Anam noted that Komnas HAM had formed the State and Civilian Violence Monitoring Team specifically to gather data on forms of violence committed by state officials, primarily the police.

However, the institution also highlights or collects data on violence by institutions other than the police, such as in Papua.

"Hence, for (violence committed in) Papua that relates to the military and violence in prison, they have their own teams," he noted.

Chief of the Human Rights Enforcement Support Bureau Gatot Ristanto noted that from 2020 to 2021, the commission had focused on five main points concerning violence against civilians.

The first focus was the issue of violence as one of the strategic issues by the Komnas HAM as well as monitoring of the human rights situation that involved state violence from 2020 to 2021.

The third point was the commission's observation result from the monitoring and investigation department, data of cases and handling of incidents among people as the basis for the data, and snapshot of the violence situation and actors.

Specifically, in 2020, the rights body had recorded 72 cases of violence conducted by the police and 55 cases that occurred in 2021. In the military, some 10 cases were recorded in 2020 and 11 cases in 2021.

Subsequently, Komnas HAM recorded two cases of violence by officials from civilian organizations in 2020 and one case in 2021.

Finally, violence against civilians was also conducted by the Public Order Security Agency (Satpol PP), with two cases in 2020 and one case in 2021.

Related news: Rejecting death penalty not meant to protect rapist: rights body
Related news: Over 50 percent of complaints concern prosperity: Komnas HAM
Related news: Public awareness of human rights improving: Komnas HAM

Translator: M Zulfikar, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Sri Haryati
Copyright © ANTARA 2022