Indonesia police admit to using torture

Transcript

The human rights NGO Amnesty International says the police in Indonesia have admitted torturing a man to death.

The admission has prompted calls for a review of Indonesia's membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Ben Robinson reports.

Amnesty International says Indonesia's police chief, General Badrodin Haiti, admitted the use of torture to a government committee investigating the death in custody of a terrorism suspect. It says General Haiti confirmed that members of an elite counter-terrorism unit kicked the suspect in the chest, breaking his ribs, and causing his heart to fail. An Amnesty spokesperson Margaret Taylor says the confirmation ends a decade of denial by Indonesia that it doesn't engage in torture.

MARGARET TAYLOR: This is absolutely a case of torture. To beat someone so badly that his heart stops and he dies, that's torture. It highlights what amnesty international has been saying for decades now. That police and security forces do torture and they get away with it. And that needs to stop.

Ms Taylor says international pressure should be applied to the Indonesian government to outlaw the use of torture.

MARGARET TAYLOR: Many promises have been made and including by president Widodo on election that he would address outstanding human rights concerns. However what we do know is that the criminal code in Indonesia is being reviewed it has been under revision for close to three decades and when they do review it. They do need to ensure that torture is criminalised in Indonesia and in addition we are also calling for an independent police complaints mechanism to be set up in that country. So that it is not the police investigating themselves it is independent sources.

Indonesia's use of torture has prompted calls for a review of its membership of the regional body the Melanesian Spearhead Group. The Solomon Islands opposition MP Derrick Manuari says Indonesia should allow the United Nations and the media to investigate claims of police brutality in West Papua.

DERRICK MANUARI: This is just one of many examples or many cases that warrants review of Indonesia's membership in MSG and also I think it is time the Melanesian Spearhead group lobby for a team from the United Nations to go to West Papua and also I think media is allowed free access to West Papua so that they can report events that are happening in West Papua.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group meets next month in Vanuatu where its government plans to call for Indonesia to be removed from the body and the United Liberation Movement for West Papua to be given full membership. The chair of the Vanuatu Free West Papua Association, Pastor Allen Nafuki, says the admission by Indonesian police validates allegations of police brutality coming from West Papua.

ALLEN NAFUKI: We are aware of killing in West Papua and in Indonesia and elsewhere also but this has been ongoing for some time now. Our government in Vanuatu and civil society organisations in Vanuatu at large we are all saying Indonesia out, West Papua in.

Allen Nafuki says he'll lead a protest march to the MSG meeting in Port Vila next week.