Editorial: We Need Police, Not Capital Punishment, to Handle 'Drug Emergency'
Indonesia’s police officers are among the best cops in the world in term of investigative and detective skills. The proof? Just look how our officers can paralyze — if not defeat — terrorist groups operating across the archipelago.
The aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombing saw the emergence of terrorism in Indonesia, highlighted by the strong presence of the group Jemaah Islamiyah.
With thousands of islands stretching from Aceh to Papua, Indonesia faced an almost impossible task of locating or arresting people, not to mention seasoned terrorists. But our police have proved they can do the job. They arrested not just one or two but hundreds of members of terrorist cells hiding in big cities and small islands, severely weakening the terror network.
The police have shown that they can handle one of the most organized and dangerous crimes of our time — taking on offenders ready to die on behalf of extremist religious ideals.
That’s why the so-called drug emergency in Indonesia is confusing. The word “emergency” as used by President Joko Widodo means that it’s already out of hand. But if the police can handle much more dangerous, lethal and organized terror organizations, there is no reason they can’t handle the drug traffickers. The question is, why is the nation under a drug emergency if our police are that good?
The first answer is first the emergency situation is heavily exaggerated for political purposes so that government can claim credit when it cracks it down, and find justification when executing drug offenders.
The second is that the police are not serious in handling drug cases; in many cases, individual officers actually benefit from drug smuggling.
We believe that if the police can do their job — preventing drugs from circulating in Indonesia and arresting the big drug lords — we wouldn’t be talking about executing people. Indonesia doesn’t need capital punishment to prevent drugs from spreading.
All we need is our police to do their jobs seriously.
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