Indonesia: The Anti-subversion Law: a briefing

This document provides a summary of Amnesty International’s main concerns relating to the Anti-subversion Law and how this legislation has facilitated serious human rights violations, including the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience, torture, unfair trials, “disappearances” and possible extrajudicial killings. This legislation has been employed extensively to silence dissent by detaining without trial hundreds of thousands of political opponents during the past 32 years. Hundreds of others charged with subversion have been unfairly tried and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or even put to death. Although strong criticism of the law, including from Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights, has meant its use by the authorities has declined, it is still applied, particularly in more remote areas, and recently in connection with the raid on the Jakarta headquarters of the Indonesian Democratic Party by members of the security forces and the subsequent arrest of political activists, human rights defenders and trade unionists.

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