Download Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights has found that two boys who died in police custody were tortured to death by police officers.
The boys were arrested for petty thief in West Sumatra and found two days later dead in the police station.
The police claim the boys hung themselves, but have admitted after intense public pressure that the boys were tortured while in custody.
As Citra Dyah Prastuti reports their death is the latest in a string of cases of police abuse in Indonesia.
She is speaking with Setra Linda, the sister of the boys who died.
“My little brothers were tortured until their last breath in just one and half days in the police station of Sijunjung. They were murdered then the police hung the bodies. They commited murder!”
In December last year, police arrested without a warrant 14-year old Faisal and his brother 17-year old Budri. They were taken to the Sijunjung police station for allegedly stealing a motorcycle and taking money from a charity box at a mosque.
Linda says her family was not informed of their arrest and not told that the boys had died.
“We did not get any phone call from the police. A friend of my brothers overheard a phone conversation about two brothers from Pulasan who had died in a police station. We come from Pulasan. So that friend asked my brother, do you know that there are brothers from Pulasan who died in the police station, the police claim that they hung themselves in detention he said.”
She found out from the village chief that the boys they were talking about were her brothers.
Linda immediately rushed to the Sijunjung police station around 70 kilometers away from her home.
She asked to see the bodies but the police refused to take her to them.
Linda wouldn’t take no for an answer and marched to the local health centre where she demanded to see the bodies.
“Faisal’s skull was soft, with bruises all over his body. His fingers were black, his neck was broken. Budri had lost two teeth. His neck was broken, and also his jaws. There’s a bullet wound on his left leg. And there were no signs of hanging that I could see on their necks.”
Before her family was allowed to take the bodies home for burial the police forced them to sign a letter saying they would not sue the police for what had happened.
They reluctantly signed.
Sijunjung Police insist that the two boys hanged themselves in their prison cell using their clothing as ropes.
But the National Commission on Human Rights investigation found this is a lie.
Commission member Jhony Nelson Simajutak says they are certain the boys did not commit suicide.
Under mounting pressure the Indonesian police have admitted the boys were tortured while in custody but insist they hung themselves.
Police spokesperson Boy Rafli Amar.
“There was possible negligence by our staff while the boys were in custody. There should not be any harmful objects entering prison cells. If there were no proper equipments, it would have been difficult for them to commit suicide.”
Nine police officers were sentenced to 21 days of detention for the torture.
But this is not enough for the family.
Their older sister Linda promises to fight for justice.
“We are demanding the police officers involved be fired, and sentenced to death. If they only a few days of detention that’s way too light a punishment for murdering my brothers.”
What happened to her brothers is far from an isolated event.
Recently a 15-year-old boy was found guilty of stealing a pair of rubber sandals that belong to a police officer. The child was beaten by the police till his legs bled.
When the case was reported in the media child protection advocates launched a sandal donation drive.
And more than a thousand dirty sandals were donated in a week and dropped off at the police station in protest.
More than 7,000 minors are believed to be serving sentences in adult prisons across the country.
Arief spent two years in prison for drug possession when he was fifteen years old.
“The older inmates beat us and the wardens did nothing about it. Sometimes they beat us too. When I was transferred to a child prison in Tangerang, I was beaten by the wardens and the older inmates with a water hose then a rattan stick. They hit me so hard the stick broke. I had bruises all over my body, they told me to do push-ups and then they would kicked me. I was very close to dying.”
Apong Herlina from the National Commission for Child Protection wants to see a dramatic change in the way children are treated by the legal system.
“Prison is not an effective way to rehabilitate children involved in criminal cases. It has such a negative impact on the child: the trauma and the stigma. And putting a child in prison is more expensive than returning the child to his parents and then working out a program in collaboration with government groups to rehabilitate the child. The most important thing is to try and prevent children from breaking the law.”
The Indonesian parliament is now discussing amending the laws on juvenile detention.
Nudirman Munir from the powerful Golkar party believes that the new law will protect child from police abuse.
“With the new law, no children will ever be tortured again because under the new law, police officers will be punished if they just take a child into police detention. That will no longer be possible. Every child under the new law must be given a lawyer and child’s rights consultant who will be able to explain clearly the child’s rights and what is happening to them. The child’s future is our highest priority.”
