Indonesian Police Continue to Abuse Power, Komnas HAM Says
Farouk Arnaz & Markus Junianto Sihaloho | December 10, 2009
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346615So, Mr Komnas Ham....what the ****, are you doing about it?
It was stated in another newspaper yesterday that the police are given (only) 4 months training for the job. Good grief. You need about that much time just to train them in anger management.
If it is true that recruits are only given 4 months training before they 'graduate' and take up police responsibilities, it is no surprise that they seem always to be overstepping the mark and behaving inappropriately. Four months is hardly enough time to educate a person in the responsibilities and legalities of police work. Clearly these fellows haven't a clue what they are meant to be doing and how to go about it. They are not bouncers at a nightclub. Or perhaps they think they are. And the public are the patrons to be pushed around.
Often the wrong sort of person gets attracted to police work. People with 'authority' hangups - inadequate people who want to compensate by being in a position where they can order people around - these people need to be screened out of the process.
One way to begin this could be to cut out all the nonsense of fancy titles. I think it is embarrassingly laughable that in Indonesia a raw rookie policeman on the lowest rung is called a 'Brigadier'. What is a higher ranking officer called - Lord High Pooh Bah Of The Inflated Ego?
Indonesian obsession with rank and title and (silly) uniforms and (bogus) medals is a worry. Perhaps a reform of the police force could begin with this - because it requires a change of mind set.
When police cease to be servants of the community and see themselves as primarily in positions that allow them to extort money from the public and order people around rather than protect people's rights, then we are in serious trouble.
When police see themselves as able to act with impunity from the Law and act above the law and beyond it, then we are all in serious trouble.
Indeed, although you hardly need Komnas HAM to reach this conclusion, you can see it on TV every morning.
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Abuse of power continues to be a problem during police raids, the National Commission on Human Rights said on Wednesday.
Ifdhal
Kasim, chairman of the commission, also known as Komnas HAM, said it
often received complaints from the public about wrongful arrests,
excessive force during operations and the torture of suspects.
“In
terror raids, for instance, police will pay scant attention to human
rights when dealing with terror suspects and the suspects’ family
members,” he said.
“We’ve found clear signs that police
officers favor a culture of violence. They prefer to settle a case by
taking matters into their own hands via the use of force.”
Ifdhal
cited a recent incident in which a University of Indonesia history
lecturer was assaulted by police simply because they mistook him for a
drug dealer.
It was no secret that during police
interrogations, suspects often faced both physical and excessive verbal
abuse, he said, adding that despite numerous complaints of torture at
the hands of police officers to Komnas HAM, such incidents still
occurred regularly across the country.
Ifdhal said that police had to follow the rule of law like any ordinary citizen, even during the course of protecting others.
“I
believe that all these problems, particularly in relation to police
torture, happen because the government does not have a proper system
that completely supports the prevention of these incidents,” he added.
Corruption
and collusion, Ifdhal said, also continued to heavily influence police
investigations, affecting whether cases were properly pursued or not.
He contrasted the recent prosecution of a grandmother in Central Java
for stealing fruit to cases of corrupt bankers that often never even
reached the courts.
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