A community in eastern Indonesia has placed 1,000 pink adeniums outside the local parliament, police station and courtroom, not to say thanks, but to send a message: Leave our kids alone.
In recent weeks, Indonesians outraged by reports of children arrested for petty crimes — some of whom were later beaten by police — have been mocking law enforcers with flowers, coins and even used footwear.
Police are locking up children for minor misdemeanors, while rampant official corruption and theft of millions in public funds is often punished with just a slap on the wrist, protesters and rights advocates say.
Photo: AFP
“There is a culture of arrogance in the police force and it is completely unprofessional to go after children,” said Neta Pane, director of the campaign group Indonesia Police Watch.
“Indonesians are getting very angry about how police focus on tedious crimes, while politicians and businesspeople walk free from big corruption cases,” Pane said.
Earlier this month, Indonesians across the country dumped more than 1,200 pairs of sandals, flip-flops and slippers at collection points after a teenager was arrested and beaten by police for stealing an officer’s worn-out sandals.
The story of the 15-year-old boy, who faced a stiff jail sentence, turned into a cause celebre. The case goes to the heart of widespread public perception that the real criminals are getting away with it, Pane said.
Days after the sandals campaign, children’s rights activists began collecting coins to draw attention to the trial in Bali of a teenager accused of stealing a wallet containing 1,000 rupiah (US$0.11),
The 1,000 flowers were sent in another case, that of a 16-year-old boy charged with stealing and selling eight adeniums from his aunt’s garden in the city of Soe, on the Indonesian part of Timor Island.
The orphan said he sold the flowers for US$1 each to raise money for school fees.
The unusual demonstrations were successful. All three teenagers were returned to their families after their cases came to the attention of the media and police were warned not to make more noise than necessary over petty crimes.
However, there are still about 6,000 children in Indonesian jails, only 600 of them in children’s facilities, the government says.
Children, like adults, are kept in police cells as they await trial.
After a rash of similar cases in 2009 — including the arrest of 10 shoeshine boys for playing a coin-toss game that police considered gambling — the national police force conceded it would seek alternative solutions.
“Obviously there has been no progress. Judges are also to blame, sending so many kids to jail. It’s only when there’s a protest that they side with the public and acquit the accused,” Pane said.
Despite a law that stipulates jailing should be “the last resort” for punishing a child, Indonesian courts convict and imprison 90 percent of the children they try, the UN Children’s Fund said.
The boy who stole the police officer’s sandals was reportedly physically abused by police and then locked up for almost three months on dubious evidence.
And a case in which two brothers in police custody were found dead with bruises covering their bodies has deepened public distrust of the law enforcement agencies.
For four years in a row Indonesians have named the police as the country’s most corrupt institution, according to Transparency International, which found 50 percent of all police interactions involved bribes.
Since the media attention and grassroots campaigns, Indonesia’s parliament has resumed a revision of the 1997 law on child protection, which is riddled with vague language.
The independent Indonesian Commission for Child Protection, which is funded by the government, wants to see an end to jailing children altogether, but as progress is slow, it has recommended lifting the age at which children can be caged from 12 to 15.
“We have some good child-protection laws, but there’s a problem in disseminating information to all police and judges to ensure they are implementing them,” commission secretary Muhammed Ihsan said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in