Legacy of Death: How Colonial and Socio-Cultural Factors Support Capital Punishment in Indonesia

The present article endeavours to analyse the roots and development of capital punishment in Indonesia, from its colonial past, through its independence, to the passing of the new criminal code in 2022. By focusing on history, political trends, religion and culture, through the lens of a postcolonial theoretical framework, it explains why the country has resisted the increased global appetite for abolition. Moreover, I posit that ‘coloniality’ plays a crucial role in the country’s efforts to maintain sovereignty over its internal policies, including human rights legislation, and its lack of permeability to the growing international pressures towards abolition. Capital punishment therefore emerges as a form of necropower, bestowing the state with the authority not only to kill, but to symbolically reclaim its right to act outside the moral economy presided by former colonisers.