The executions will be the third round under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, after the country put 14 drug convicts, mostly foreigners, to death in two groups in 2015, to much global outrage.
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According to the latest government report issued by Indonesia’s ministry of law and human rights, 133 were on death row as of January 2015.
However preparations for the executions are intensifying at Cilacap in Central Java, the gateway to the penal island of Nusakambangan, where the prisoners will be shot dead by special police known as BRIMOB around midnight on Friday.
The priest of convicted former Indonesian migrant worker Merri Utami, “was told to prepare for tonight”, said her lawyer Ricky Gunawan. He said a firing squad has already been mustered, ready to be deployed on Nusakambangan Island, where executions normally take place.
The global fury echoes last year’s campaign against another spate of executions, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug-smuggling ring, whose led Australia to temporarily recall its ambassador to Indonesia.
Community Legal Aid Institute, which is involved in some of the death row cases, has circulated the names including four Indonesians, six Nigerians, two Zimbabweans, one Indian and one Pakistani.
Inmates are given 72-hours notification and are kept in isolation, with only the company of their religious counselors.
A vigil has been planned in Jakarta on Thursday evening, where 1,000 candles will be lit in front of the state palace in peaceful protest. Carrying out executions will not rid Indonesia of drugs. All the cases have gone through a long legal process including appeals, he said.
Amnesty International believes that Jokowi would put his government on the wrong side of history if he proceeded with a fresh round of executions, said the group’s Southeast Asia head Josef Benedict.
Indonesia last carried out executions in April 2015 when it put to death eight drug convicts, including two Australians, sparking worldwide outrage. “Though report was not shared with us but we were told from our sources that the report found Zulfiqar innocent and recommended redressal measures”, it added.
In a report published previous year, Amnesty had found 12 of the prisoners were “denied access to legal counsel at the time of their arrest, and at different periods thereafter”. At the time he was 23 years old. Some claimed they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment while in police custody, and were forced to “confess” to their alleged crimes.
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He was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to death following discovery of 300g of heroin in a bag which belonged to him. The supreme court rejected a judicial review filed by Kingsley in November 2014.
