JakartaPost-Mar 27, 2023
While lauding the government for supporting the majority of recommendations on improving Indonesia’s human rights provided during the fourth cycle of its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a coalition of local rights groups has also criticized the government for not following through on the most pressing recommendations. The UPR is a peer review mechanism that applies to all 193 United Nations member states and is managed under the UN Human Rights Council. The Civil Society Coalition for UPR Reporting, which includes Amnesty International Indonesia, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), SAFEnet, the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus and LGBT rights group Arus Pelangi, has expressed disappointment over the government’s selectiveness over the recommendations it received. According to an addendum to the Report of the Working Group on the UPR – Indonesia dated March 17, 2023, the government has decided to fully support 205 recommendations, partially support five recommendations, and take note of 55 recommendations it received from other member states during its UPR session in Geneva last November. “We view that the Indonesian government has not evenly distributed its attention to some of the issues that were recommended during the review,” the group said in a statement published on Thursday on the Kontras website. The group pointed out that the government did not support any of the recommendations related to capital punishment, even though the 1945 Constitution recognizes the right to life, and that Indonesian courts handed out 66 death sentences between January 2020 and September 2022. Read more at:
