In its concluding observations, adopted on 23-24 July 2013 and issued yesterday, the Committee made recommendations echoing the concerns raised by FIDH and its member organization in Indonesia, KontraS, in particular on the death penalty, extra-judicial killings, torture, excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, access to lawyers and legal aid, the protection of ethnic and religious minorities, freedom of expression, and the direct applicability of the Covenant by domestic courts.
The Committee also called on Indonesia to put an end to impunity by effectively prosecuting cases of past human rights violations, highlighting the murder of prominent human rights defender and KontraS founder Munir Said Thalib. Munir was killed on 7 September 2004 on a Garuda Airlines flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. The official investigation led to the conviction of a former Garuda pilot, but KontraS’s own research led it, FIDH and other civil society organizations to believe that the convicted pilot was only a hired assassin, and that the people who plotted Munir’s murder are still at large. By raising the issue of ineffective remedies for the extrajudicial killing of Munir, the Human Rights Committee echoed our concerns.
Download the report submitted by FIDH and KontraS to the UN Human Rights Committee (July 2013).