Arya News - Indonesia saw its last executions in 2016 of four drug trafficking convicts. However, the country`s new Criminal Code (KUHP) marks a shift in the legal framework by classifying it as a “special punishment” to be imposed only as a last resort.
JAKARTA – Indonesia has gone a decade without carrying out the execution of a death row prisoner, but courts continue to hand down capital punishments even as the new Criminal Code (KUHP) no longer classifies the death penalty as a principal punishment.
The country saw its last executions in 2016 with four drug trafficking convicts. While Indonesia has maintained a hiatus on new executions, the death penalty remains legal, although the new KUHP, which took effect in January, marks a shift in the legal framework by classifying it as a “special punishment” to be imposed only as a last resort.
The code stipulated the death penalty must be imposed as an alternative to life or a fixed-term imprisonment. Judges may give a 10-year probation period during which the sentences may be commuted if a prisoner demonstrates commendable conduct.
The provisions bring “a breath of change” to criminal law reform, according to the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras), although death sentences continue to be handed down throughout the year.
Some 639 people, including nine women, were on death row as of April, up from 596 in August 2025, according to Kontras’ 2026 report on death sentences in Indonesia. The report was published on Oct. 9 ahead of the World Day against the Death Penalty, which is commemorated every Oct. 10.
Drug-related offenses accounted for the largest share of cases with 441, followed by murder at 165 and nine for robbery.
The use of death sentences for drug-related offenses has raised serious human rights concerns, said Kontras researcher Windy Koesherawati. She cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that stipulates such a punishment may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes”, a category excluding drug-related crimes.
“Drug-related offenses continue to carry the death penalty because the state maintains a punitive approach to its war on drugs,” she said on Oct. 17.
She added that in some cases, death sentences were handed down only to satisfy public demand for harsh punishment.
The Legal Aid Institute for the People (LBHM) also criticized what it described as the government’s “contradictory” stance on the death penalty. While the KUHP allows the conversion of death sentences to alternative punishments, the government has yet to issue a regulation on such commutation.
“The absence of these regulations violates the rights of death row inmates,” LBHM director Albert Wirya said on Oct. 17.
He added that LBHM estimated more than 150 people on death row are eligible for commutation as they have spent more than 10 years in prison.
“Since the new KUHP was enacted, they have heard about this provision in prison. But nearly a year later, commutation has yet to be implemented,” Albert continued.
Kontras’ report also highlighted the psychological toll of prolonged uncertainty over execution among inmates, whose distress is worsened by isolation, discrimination and poor prison services.
Kontras and LBHM urged the government to show serious political commitment to abolishing the death penalty, including by issuing regulations governing commutation.
The government has yet to issue all the implementing government regulations for the KUHP.
In July, Deputy Law Minister Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej told the House of Representatives that only one of three required regulations had been issued, concerning living law.
Law Ministry spokesperson Ronald Lumbuun said on Friday that the KUHP’s implementing regulation on commutation is currently under deliberation: “It’s currently being deliberated by the Law Ministry’s leadership after previously being reviewed by the state secretary.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Indonesia’s decade-long execution hiatus is part of a broader shift toward capital punishment abolition across Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are among the countries taking steps toward eliminating death sentences, following the path taken by Brunei Darussalam and Laos, which last carried out executions in 1957 and 1989, respectively.
“It’s clear that the way in which the death penalty is used is slowly but surely changing across the region. Abolition is evidently emerging as concerns over human dignity and compliance with international human rights law increase,” said Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Joshua Ericsson in a statement on Oct. 12.
Law Minister Supratman Andi Agtas said in August that Indonesian courts could still impose the death penalty, depending on prosecutors’ demands and judges’ rulings, because it remains enshrined in Indonesian laws, including against corruption.