El uso de la pena de muerte en Indonesia es contraproducente y constituye una violación de las leyes internacionales de derechos humanos. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was elected in July 2014. Hailed as a man of the people, his campaign was built on a platform of human rights. But on January 18, Jokowi placed himself in a category of his own: he became the first president of Indonesia to execute six people in one night since the country’s democratic reformation in 1998

The people sentenced to death were people convicted of drug trafficking. Five of the six were foreigners, which prompted a swift and emphatic international outcry. Three of the countries whose citizens were among the executed recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia, and several advocacy groups condemned the executions in no uncertain terms.

The uproar is well founded—using the death penalty to solve a country’s drug problems is not a solution at all. The Community Legal Aid Institution in Jakarta,Lembaga Bantuam Hukum Masyarakat (LBHM), worked tirelessly to stop Sunday’s executions.

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Las ejecuciones de personas por delitos de drogas no ayudarán a Indonesia

Múltiples informes muestran que los debates sobre cómo combatir el tráfico de drogas está tomando un tono pragmático. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

There are few subjects more emotive than the so-called “war on drugs” and drug legalisation. They are very hard to think about clearly and very easy to get angry about. Nuance tends to get drowned out in the roar of strong opinion, whether from the families of addicts, fundamentalist libertarians or — in a recent commercial addition to the debate — the public relations officers of the US’s foundling legal cannabis industry.

How police policy should respond is the subject of the multiple papers and three rounds of seminars on “Modernising Drug Law Enforcement” published by the IDPC, a consortium of well-respected drug policy NGOs, with the support of two British think-tanks, Chatham House and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Its contributors and main audience are senior police officers and government officials. Yes, drug reform has gone mainstream. Even the US has officially dropped the phrase “drugs war” (although not much of Asia has: this month, Indonesia executed six small time drug-traffickers, including a Canadian and a Brazilian).

The US spends over $40bn a year on arresting and imprisoning users, making drug prohibition a surprising example of a big government programme.

The starting point is to decide: what should be the aim of drugs policy? The consensus is that we should seek to reduce harm. That means a change of focus from, say, increasing drug seizures or incarcerations to pushing levels of violence down. This approach can lead to obvious conclusions, such as the merit of heroin-replacement therapies. In the UK, as much as 50 per cent of acquisitive crime is committed to feed a drug habit, usually heroin. Stabilise the lives of these most chaotic drug users, therefore, and not only do crime levels fall, it also becomes possible to think about weaning the addict off drugs. But prioritising harm-reduction also leads to more surprising recommendations. Online drug marketplaces such as the Silk Road, for example, may be preferable to tolerating drug dealing in public places, as these tend to concentrate violence.

Paradoxically, drug legalisation also requires better, not less, enforcement. Of particular importance is collecting tax revenues from drug sales, a difficult task as the contraband trade in regulated drugs such as tobacco and alcohol shows. Furthermore, the idea that legalising all drugs would suddenly rid the world of narco-criminals does not wash. Mexican organised crime, for example, runs diversified lines of business almost as profitable as drug trafficking, from kidnapping and extortion to iron ore smuggling to China and oil theft (alone worth $1bn a year). Solving such problems has less to do with illicit drug markets than building the rule of law.

La guerra que no termina

En 2011, los países asiáticos habían declarado su deseo de reducir la transmisión del sida entre los usuarios de drogas inyectables antes de 2015, sin embargo las estrategias punitivas impiden la consecución de este objetivo. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

From 28 to 30 January 2015, the Asia-Pacific Intergovernmental Meeting on HIV and AIDS (IGM) will be held in Bangkok, convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission in Asia-Pacific (UNESCAP) in cooperation with other relevant United Nations entities.

The IGM will set the agenda for regional cooperation on legal and policy barriers to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, and in the context of meeting the commitments in the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: Intensifying Our Efforts to Eliminate HIV and AIDS, which include reducing the transmission of HIV amongst people who inject drugs by 50% by 2015.

The outcomes of the IGM will serve as one of the regional inputs to the global review of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals to be undertaken by the General Assembly in 2015, on HIV and AIDS for the development agenda beyond 2015, and the UN High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in 2016.

This infographic highlights the criminalisation and punishment imposed on people who use drugs, which constitute key legal and policy barriers to achieving universal access. These barriers must be removed in order to make any significant progress in achieving regional and global commitments to people who use drugs.

A lo largo de Asia, duras penas y la criminalización se imponen sobre los usuarios de drogas

El gobierno de Brasil ha criticado la decision de Indonesia de ejecutar a personas por delitos de drogas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 53, was arrested in 2003 after police at Jakarta airport found 13.4 kg of cocaine hidden in his hang glider. Brazil says he was the first Brazilian national to be executed abroad and has warned it will damage relations. Five other convicts from Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Vietnam and the Netherlands, were executed on Sunday.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in a statement that she was "outraged and dismayed". "Relations between the two countries have been affected," said Ms Rousseff. "The Brazilian ambassador to Jakarta has been recalled for consultations," she added. The Netherlands has also recalled its ambassador, after Foreign Minister Bert Koenders called the execution of Dutch citizen Ang Kiem Soe, 52, "an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity". Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The country resumed executions in 2013 after an unofficial four-year moratorium.

Noticias

Las ejecuciones de personas por delitos de drogas no ayudarán a Indonesia

La guerra que no termina

A lo largo de Asia, duras penas y la criminalización se imponen sobre los usuarios de drogas

Brasil 'indignado' por las ejecuciones por delitos de drogas en Indonesia