Ministry Of Law And Human Rights Initiates Bill On Anti-torture Crimes

Illustration of persecution (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Directorate General (Ditjen) of Human Rights (HAM) of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights initiated the Draft Law (RUU) on Criminal Acts of Torture and Treatment or Other Cruel, Non-Humanism, or Reaping Human Dignity.

"Yes, we just have a discourse, we want a bill related to anti-torture," said Director General (Dirjen) HAM Dhana Putra after the agenda for discussing Human Rights Dissemination: Follow-up to the Implementation of the Anti-torture Convention, quoted by ANTARA. Wednesday 7 June.

Dhana said the bill's proposal was to create regulations regarding more comprehensive anti-torture, as well as the Law on the Crime of Sexual Violence (UU TPKS).

"It's similar to the TPKS (UU), there is a process in terms of human resources, there is education, there is even recovery. That's the plan for the future that we hope for," said Dhan.

He added that currently the bill is being studied internally by the institution. However, his party has not yet determined the target time for the future.

"So, it's just a study. Later, if there is an agreement, we will prepare an academic paper," he said.

Meanwhile, Member of Commission III of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Taufik Basari, who was also present as a resource person in the discussion, welcomed the initiative of the Government regarding the Bill on Crime Against Torture.

"Earlier, I just heard that there was a discourse that the Directorate General of Human Rights was pushing regarding to have or draft a bill to prevent torture," said Taufik Basari.

According to Taufik, the bill can be in line with the TPKS Law. Later, he added, the Bill on Crime Against Torture can contain things outside the offense.

"With the new formulation in our new Criminal Code, it is clear that we have adopted what is in the Convention Against Torture. However, then there is a discourse that there is a special bill on torture, maybe things can be published outside of offenses, such as (UU) TPKS," he said.

Taufik fully supports the discourse of the bill because torture needs to be placed as an important thing to prevent and take action, as well as ensure the recovery process for victims.

"The fees will be discussed in Commission III, but still long. As a discourse, this is already good. Moreover, we already have a reference to the TPKS Law," he said.