Skip to main content

Police shame over poll

An Indonesian Police general could not hide his anger in a recent TV interview about the Indonesian public perception ranking the police as the country's most corrupt institution, when he basically branded the findings of the Indonesian Chapter of Transparency International (TI) as rubbish. But with such rampant red tape, bribery and even extortion -- just look how police extort motorists for example -- perhaps even the general's colleagues in the force would laugh at his denial.


In the TI 2007 Global Corruption Barometer issued last week, Indonesian respondents listed the police as the most corrupt institution, followed by the courts, legislatures and political parties. The findings are not surprising, since it approached members of the public, who made their observations from their personal experience in daily life. In nearly all sectors, the police are widely perceived as corrupt and connected with money. Hearing the result must have made the national police ashamed and mad, but they embarrassed themselves further in their overreaction. The police response was as farcical as a soap opera, when they questioned the survey's credibility and purpose. On one occasion, a police spokesman reportedly announced that the result was like people's mind's were being poisoned or brainwashed. His response shows just how panicked and ashamed the police were.


Unfortunately, the police' case in defense has not really held up. Indonesian people are not stupid, and realize what is happening from their own experience. The accusation that TI was brainwashing the public is simply illogical. On the streets we can easily find police stopping motorists for traffic violations (and sometimes just with false accusation to pay for police officers to get coffee or cigarettes). Motorists just have to bribe police on the spot and then they can go. This is also an example of corruption. Police do not need to ask TI to prove its findings, but should open their eyes and hearts, and face the facts. The police should also not be overreacting like actors on television. The result may not be pleasing, but they should look to the House of Representatives' example. The legislators gave a more positive response to the findings and did not get mad like the police. The national police should take the result as constructive criticism, because their the accusations make them look arrogant. I think everyone would agree not all officers commit corruption.


People want to have a great national police force and know the police are trying to build an image of a respectable institution. The police have had some success in tackling big issues like drugs and terrorism, but if police on the streets and behind the scenes continually ask for bribes, their public image will not improve. In order to fix the system, police should conduct internal reforms, bring discipline to police officers and teach them not to ask for bribes, ever. We do not want to be in a situation where one corrupt institution chases another. Whether or not we will see the development of a strong, great and clean national police force is perhaps a dream that can only be realized by the national police themselves. The writer is a student of Atma Jaya University's faculty of education. He can be reached at http://sg.f586.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=michaelsetiawan%40hotmail.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greenpeace boycott Palm oil products Duta Palma

Environmental organization Greenpeace India has demanded that all Indian palm oil importers and corporate consumers immediately stop palm oil sourcing from Indonesian companies like Duta Palma who make palm oil by destroying forests and tiger habitat in Indonesia. An investigative report issued by Greenpeace Indonesia released on Thursday links India's growing palm oil imports and corporate apathy to Duta Palma's destruction of hundreds of acres of Indonesian rainforests and tiger habitat in complete disregard of Indonesian government&# 39;s moratorium on such activities in the rainforest. Big Indian corporates like Ruchi Soya, Adani -Wilmar, Godrej Industries, Parle, Britannia are among many who use Indonesian palm oil in their products on a large scale.  "Duta Palma's dirty oil could well be entering into their supply chains. Yet, so far, no Indian company has taken any visible steps to clean up their supply chain, to delink their brands from the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Debate Islam in Indonesia

http://www.thejakar taglobe.com/ opinion/interloc utors-of- indonesian- islam/560447 Interlocutors of Indonesian Islam Ahmad Najib Burhani | December 08, 2012 A few months ago, the Japanese anthropologist Mitsuo Nakamura told me that studying Nahdlatul Ulama as an organization was beyond the imagination of any American scholar from the 1950s to the ’70s. But he is not the only academic to have noticed this. George McT. Kahin of Cornell University stated the same thing. Even NU-expert Martin van Bruinessen was not expecting to study NU as his primary focus when he came to Indonesia for the first time in the 1980s.   During the early decades of Indonesian independence, NU was relatively unorganized and its management was largely based on the authority of religious teachers ( kyai ). Of course there were a number of scholars who studied NU-affiliated religious schools ( pesantren ) and its kyai, but not NU as an organization.   Even though NU was one of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

is that true in Indonesia there freedom of religion?

The problems began shortly after Tajul Muluk, a Shiite cleric, opened a boarding school in 2004. The school, in a predominantly Sunni Muslim part of East Java, raised local tensions, and in 2006 it was attacked by thousands of villagers. When a mob set fire to the school and several homes last December, many Shiites saw it as just the latest episode in a simmering sectarian conflict — one that they say has been ignored by the police and exploited by Islamists purporting to preserve the purity of the Muslim faith.   Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has long been considered a place where different religious and ethnic groups can live in harmony and where Islam can work with democracy.   But that perception has been repeatedly brought into question lately. In East Java, Sunni leaders are pushing the provincial government to adopt a regulation limiting the spread of Shiite Islam. It would prevent the country’s two major Shiite organizations from ...
Post a Comment
Read more