President Orders Shooting Of Drug Traffickers

The president has previously been criticised for ordering executions against convicted drug traffickers who were given the death penalty by courts.

President Joko Widodo of Indonesia wants a permanent end to drug peddling.

He says peddlers are destroying his people and he wants them shot if they refuse to be arrested peacefully.

The instruction is part of emergency efforts to tackle narcotic use in the South-East Asia nation.

“Be firm, especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country and resist arrest,” Widodo told law enforcement officers on Monday.

Shoot them because we indeed are in a narcotics emergency position now,’’ Widodo added in a speech delivered at an event held by one of Indonesia’s political groups.

His remarks have drawn comparison to that of Philippine’s President, Rodrigo Duterte, who launched a brutal anti-drug crackdown about a year ago that saw many alleged drug dealers killed.

The bloody campaign in the Philippines has drawn condemnation from the international community, including the United Nations.

Indonesia also has tough laws against drugs.

Widodo has previously been criticised for ordering executions against convicted drug traffickers who were given a death penalty by the court.

Rights activists and some governments have been kicking, calling on Indonesia to abolish the death penalty.

The  shooting order from the president came a week after Indonesian police shot dead a Taiwanese man in a town near the capital, Jakarta.

The man, according to police, was part of a group trying to smuggle one tonne of crystal methamphetamine, aka cocaine, into the country, and was killed for resisting arrest.

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