JAKARTA-Indonesia Focal Point for Corporate Crime Advocacy (IFP) assesses the disclosure of crimes involving Indonesian law enforcement institutions by the Coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Contrast) Haris Azhar shows how “corrupt” the Indonesian law enforcement system is. Moreover, the involvement of Indonesian law enforcement institutions has further strengthened assumptions regarding the failure of law enforcement in cases of lawlessness in various natural resource conflicts and other sectors.

Indonesian Civil Society Coalition Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Maryati Abdullah said this situation should be able to encourage improvements in Indonesia’s law enforcement system in resolving criminal cases, especially regarding corporate crimes involving not only law enforcement institutions, but also government officials.

This should be a momentum to continue to express injustice over the practice of exploitation and corporate control over Indonesia’s natural resources that have been carrying out various violations of people’s rights. “For example, land grabbing, environmental destruction, criminalizing farmers, fishermen, laborers, and indigenous peoples, exploiting workers without decent wages, embezzling taxes, even to killings that have never been revealed,” he added.

He said freedom of expression and opinion in expressing crime must be the main foundation in improving the law enforcement system in Indonesia, particularly law enforcement against corporations that had never been touched by the law and were “legitimized” by the State. “IFP has been present as a representative of Indonesian civil society organizations at UNHRC since 2015 in the process of formulating the UN Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights for TNCs as the implementation of UNHRC Resolution No.26 / 9,” he explained.

This resolution seeks to ensure an effective law enforcement mechanism for crimes committed by corporations in Business and Human Rights cases.

In addition, IFP also wants to strengthen the struggle against corporate crime in Indonesia through advocacy collective work that encourages state accountability to ensure law enforcement against corporations that violate law and human rights so that justice for victims can be realized. “For this reason, IFP urges that the process of improving the Indonesian law enforcement system not only be carried out in one particular case, but the improvement must also be carried out in other cases, especially those related to Business and Human Rights issues,” said Ananto from the National Commission.

In Media, Media Coverage  | PWYP Indonesia | August 11st, 2016