The Indonesian government said the death penalty is necessary for narcotics-related crimes because the country was facing a drugs epidemic, particularly affecting young people.
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President Joko Widodo has declared war against drug crimes in the country which has been at an alarming level in recent years.
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.
The UN human rights chief expressed alarm and urged Indonesia to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty that was suspended in 2013.
“The EU is opposed to capital punishment without exception and has consistently called for its universal abolition”, it said in a statement on Thursday.
The FO said he did not appeal to Indonesian President for mercy and the Supreme Court validated the verdict of the lower court.
Mr Kamara explained that numerous prisoners were alleged for drug offences, which, in the group’s view, does not meet the most serious crimes threshold under worldwide rights law to justify execution.
Indonesia on Thursday (Friday local time) executed three Nigerians and one local convicted of drug trafficking.
Indonesia’s Attorney General’s office had earlier said that it would “soon” execute 14 people.
Muhammad Prasetyo declined to reveal the names and nationalities of the inmates, but said all were being held in isolation cells in the notorious island prison of Nusakambangan in Central Java province.
The community legal aid institute, which is advocating for the 14 convicts, gave the breakdown of those on death row as six Nigerians, four Indonesians, two Zimbabweans, one Indian and one Pakistani.
Worldwide, China is believed to be the country with the highest number of executions but it does not release figures.
Seventeen ambulances, 14 of which carried coffins, arrived at the prison island on Thursday morning, The Jakarta Post reported. Previously, the attorney-general’s office said it had budgeted funds for up to 16 executions this year.
Brazilian national Rodrigo Gularte, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic caught smuggling cocaine into the archipelago in 2004, was also among the 14 men executed a year ago.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International said Jokowi’s presidency was “supposed to represent” a new era on human rights in Indonesia. The death penalty does not deter crime.
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Pakistan is making continuous efforts for the return of a Pakistani citizen Zulfiqar Ali from Indonesia.
