Indonesia may copy vigilante violence of Duterte’s drug war

JAKARTA, Indonesia — On July 22, normally mild-manned Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo instructed his police to shoot drug traffickers.

Be firm, especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country and resist arrest.” he said, “Shoot them because we indeed are in a narcotics emergency position now.

The killings and hardening government rhetoric have raised fears that Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, is now taking some cues from the Philippines as it steps up its own deadly war on drugs.

More than 7,000 people have died in President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war since he took office last year, sparking widespread accusations of extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses.

President Widodo “has always had an aggressive stance on drugs, but this is an intensification of rhetoric that is worrying because it can be seen as an endorsement of extrajudicial killings,” said Usman Hamid, the director of Amnesty International Indonesia.

Police in Jakarta did not respond to requests for data, but Jacqui Baker at Murdoch University in Australia estimates that Indonesian police kill hundreds of people each year, numbers roughly in line with those in the U.S. In a significant number of cases, evidence suggests alleged drug traffickers were the victims of extrajudicial executions — and research indicates this number is increasing.