Indonesia is set to execute 14 drug convicts including 10 foreigners and four Indonesians this week, attorney general office disclosed on Wednesday.
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Nationals from Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are expected to be executed alongside Indonesians.
Executions in Indonesia usually take place late at night outside the Nusakambangan prison facility.
Human rights monitor Imparsial is also pleading with Mr Joko to remove Mr Ali from the execution list.
Citizens of France, Britain and the Philippines are known to be among the citizens on death row.
Family members visited the prisoners on Wednesday at Nusakambangan, where Indonesia carries out executions. “They all have been given chances at all stages”. But analysts say that this supposed drug problem is misguided and that drug use in Indonesia remains relatively low compared to other countries.
At the last moment Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, also sentenced to death, was spared.
The Indonesian government says the death penalty is necessary for drug crimes because the country is facing a drug epidemic, particularly affecting young people.
Human rights groups have criticized this practice and argued that numerous cases of prisoners on death row in Indonesia are marked by questionable and inhumane practices, including beatings, torture and forced confessions.
“President Widodo’s era was supposed to represent a new start for human rights in Indonesia”. It is unsure how many will be executed this week, but at least 14 had been moved to an isolation cell.
Indonesian authorities today gave 72 hours’ notice that they will execute a group of drug convicts including foreigners, a diplomat said, despite protests from governments and rights groups.
An Amnesty International report released last year detailed allegations that one of the men on death row, 51-year-old Pakistani national Zulfiqar Ali, was kept in a house for three days after his arrest in 2004 and beaten until he confessed to possession of 300kg of heroin. “I don’t know what to say, we don’t have time”.
The last series of executions back in April 2015 sparked worldwide outrage when the country executed seven foreigners, including two Australians.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir defended the looming executions as “pure law enforcement”.
“The increasing use of the death penalty in Indonesia is terribly worrying, and I urge the Government to immediately end this practice which is unjust and incompatible with human rights”, Zeid said, as quoted in a press statement.
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“Because all legal processes have finalized, it is not easy to respond to requests for suspension of the death penalty”, Teten Masduki was quoted as saying by kompas.com Thursday. The drug convict believes his execution will be put on hold if both countries put all differences aside and take up the matter on embassy level.
