Saturday, January 2, 2010

Legal Cases in Aceh

When the Islamic Syariah Law was imposed in Aceh, local law makers thought that crimes in the province would be reduced. However, according to Tempo the number has actually increased.

Aceh Advocacy Group Reports A Rise in Legal Cases

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Legal advocacy group Aceh Legal Aid Foundation reported on Friday a rise in the number of cases it handled during 2009 by almost 50 percent from that of in 2008.

The report came as a result of a work meeting among all Legal Aid Foundation's office in the province. The group said it handled a total of 134 cases, 87 of which are criminal suits and the rest are civil cases. last year the group handled The group handled a total of 90 cases.

Twenty nine among the criminal lawsuits are violations of the civil rights which consisted of three extrajudicial killings, eight torture cases, three abuse cases, unwarranted arrests and detentions, three child civil rights violation, two violations on the principle of equality before the law, and three violations on freedom of expression.

Police stands at the first rank of the most frequent violators with involvement recorded in 24 cases, followed by regional authority with 3 cases, prison warden one case, and public order officials one case.

On economic social and cultural rights-related cases the group handled 31 of the cases occurred in the province last year, mostly came in form of land dispute.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

does not speak well or Islamic law, does it?

Unknown said...

GregoryJ,

Yeah, you are right my friend.

colson said...

ALAF reports more crime cases they handeld. Yet the figures don't actually prove if the factual number which occured are on the rise or diminishing.Neither is it clear if present day Aceh is relatively high or low on the list compared to other parts of the country.


But anyhow, whether part of a system of theocracy (Bandang Aceh) or of a democracy (Jakarta), too often Police seems to act according to it's bad reputation.

Unknown said...

Colson,

The report should be confirmed with the local police, prosecutors and Court judges.
Re: the police, although basically I agree that they often over reacted, somehow it's difficult to judge because the circumstances can be extremely difficult to be handled using normal investigation procedure. Especially that nowadays many crimes tend to be well organized.