Human rights campaigners reiterated their call for...

Human rights campaigners reiterated their call for an end to the death penalty, which they said had proven ineffective in deterring drug dealers and was against the basic human right to live.
"There is no empirical data that supports an argument a country which has the death penalty can drop its offending rate lower than countries that don't apply capital punishment," Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) director Hendardi said.
"The right to life is the fundamental right of every human being. (The government) should forthwith scrap any rules legitimizing the death sentence," he said.
While she accepted the imposition of death penalty, a prominent University of Indonesia criminologist, Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, criticized the slow appeals process of the system.
"We should set a deadline to limit the process. If the process exceeds the deadline then the president or the court should commute the death sentence to life to avoid double punishments," she said.
The following seven convicts had recently had their clemency pleas rejected by President Megawati Soekarnoputri: Samuel Iwuchekwu Okoye, 34, from Nigeria, Hansen Anthony Nwaolisa, 37, from Nigeria, Indra Bahadur Tamang, 24, from Nepal, Muhammad Abdul Hafez, 36, from Pakistan, Namaona Denis, 39, from Malawi, Saelow Prasert from Thailand and Namsong Sirilak from Thailand.