Cipinang Penitentiary Institution ( id, Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Cipinang) is a top-security prison in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It is exactly located in Cipinang Muara,

Jatinegara Jatinegara (originally known as Meester Cornelis or Meester for short) is one of the districts (''Kecamatan'') of East Jakarta, Indonesia. The name also refers to the larger, historic area of the colonial town of Meester Cornelis. Established i ...

East Jakarta ) in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII), Jatinegara railway station and Museum of Transportation at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. , image_seal = Lambang Kota Jakarta Timur.png , motto = , image_map ...

History

The prison was built by the Dutch colonial administration, during the

Indonesian National Revival The Indonesian National Awakening ( id, Kebangkitan Nasional Indonesia) is a term for the period in the first half of the 20th century, during which people from many parts of the archipelago of Indonesia first began to develop a national conscio ...

. It held Indonesian nationalist leaders such as Mohammed Hatta. Following Indonesian independence, novelist Pramoedya A. Toer was arrested in 1961 and held without trial for nearly a year in Cipinang for criticizing the Sukarno administration's anti-Chinese policies. Human rights groups such as

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

alleged that the Suharto administration used Cipinang and other prisons to silence opponents from the Sukarno administration and

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. In their annual report for 2005, AI also spoke of routine

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

and ill-treatment. The organization said of Cipinang and other prisons:

According to a survey conducted by a local non-governmental organization, over 81 per cent of prisoners arrested between January 2003 and April 2005 in
Salemba {{Short description, Neighborhood in Jakarta Salemba is a neighborhood in the Senen district, Central Jakarta. Salemba referring to another name of Jeremias Latuihamalo, King Ullath, which was then appointed by Thomas Matulessy become king of ...
detention centre, Cipinang prison and Pondok Bambu prison, all in Jakarta, were tortured or ill-treated. About 64 per cent were tortured or ill-treated during interrogation, 43 per cent during arrest and 25 per cent during detention.

During the Indonesian occupation of

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

, East Timorese independence activists, such as

Xanana Gusmão José Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmão (; born 20 June 1946) is an East Timorese politician. A former rebel, he was the third President of the independent East Timor, serving from 2002 to 2007. He then became its fourth prime minister, serving from ...

(later

President of East Timor The president of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste ( pt, Presidente da República Democrática de Timor-Leste; tet, Prezidente Republika Demokratika Timor-Leste) is the head of state of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste. The executiv ...

), were housed in the jail. Others imprisoned at Cipinang for political activity include political dissidents Asep Suryaman,

Sri Bintang Pamungkas Shri (; , ) is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific. The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Marathi, Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian), Javane ...

, and labor leader

Muchtar Pakpahan Muchtar Pakpahan (21 December 1953 – 21 March 2021) was an Indonesian labor leader who founded the first independent trade union in Indonesia. Pakpahan was active as a lawyer at Muchtar Pakpahan & Associates Law Firm and taught at the Law Fac ...

. After

Suharto Suharto (; ; 8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian army officer and politician, who served as the second and the longest serving president of Indonesia. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto ...

's resignation in 1998, new President

Jusuf Habibie Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (; 25 June 1936 – 11 September 2019) was an Indonesian engineer and politician who was the third president of Indonesia from 1998 to 1999. Less than three months after his inauguration as the seventh Vice Preside ...

released Pamungkas, Pakpahan, and Gusmão.

Abu Bakar Bashir Abu Bakar Ba'asyir ( ; ar, أبو بكر باعشير, ʾAbū Bakr Bāʿašīr; ; ; born 17 August 1938) also known as Abu Bakar Bashir, Abdus Somad, and Ustad Abu ("Teacher Abu") is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of Jamaah Ansharut Tauh ...

, the spiritual leader of Islamist terrorist group,

Jemaah Islamiyah Jemaah Islamiyah ( ar, الجماعة الإسلامية, ''al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmiyyah'', meaning "Islamic Congregation", frequently abbreviated JI) is a Southeast Asian militant extremist Islamist terrorist group based in Indonesia, which i ...

, was imprisoned in Cipinang. He was released after serving 26 months for conspiracy relating to the 2002 Bali bombing.

Today

The jail holds 4,000 prisoners in a facility designed to hold 1,500. Well-connected prisoners are often able to obtain superior accommodation. The former governor of Jakarta,

Ahok Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (, Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Chûng Van-ho̍k''; born 29 June 1966) is an Indonesian businessman, politician, and former governor of Jakarta. He is also known by his Hakka Chinese nickname Ahok (). He was the second minority gove ...

, was imprisoned here, but was released in January 2019 after receiving a two-month remission.

References

External links

*
"The view from Cipinang prison" ''Green Left Weekly''
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Jakarta Prisons in Indonesia Politics of Indonesia

History

Today

See also

References

External links