Cipinang Penitentiary Institution () is a top-security prison in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is exactly located in Cipinang Muara,

Jatinegara Jatinegara (originally known as Meester Cornelis or Meester/Mester for short) is one of the districts () of the administrative city of East Jakarta, Indonesia. The name also refers to the larger, historic area of the colonial town of Meester Corn ...

East Jakarta East Jakarta (; ), abbreviated as Jaktim, is the largest of the five administrative cities (''kota administrasi'') which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, Indonesia, with a land area of 188.03 km2 (72.6 sq.miles). It had a population ...

History

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

Indonesian National Revival The Indonesian National Awakening () 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 consciousness as "Indonesians". In the ...

. It held Indonesian nationalist leaders such as Mohammed Hatta. Following Indonesian independence, the prison continued to be used by authorities. Communists and leftists arrested in the

1951 mass arrests in Indonesia Mass arrests, primarily of communists and leftists, were carried out in Java and Sumatra in August and September 1951. Sometimes called the August Raid, or in Indonesian the (August Razzia (military), Razzia), this was a move by the Indonesian go ...

were detained there, as was the novelist Pramoedya A. Toer in 1961 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 that it has more than ten million members a ...

and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

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''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Austral ...

. 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 including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

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

According to a survey conducted by a local non-governmental organization, over 81 percent 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 Por ...
detention centre, Cipinang prison, and Pondok Bambu prison, all in Jakarta, were tortured or ill-treated. About 64 percent were tortured or ill-treated during interrogation, 43 percent during arrest, and 25 percent during detention.

During the Indonesian occupation of

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

, East Timorese independence activists, such as

Xanana Gusmão José Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmão (; born 20 June 1946) is an East Timorese politician. He has served as the 6th prime minister of East Timor since 2023, previously serving in that position from 2007 to 2015. A former rebel, he also served as E ...

(later

President of East Timor The president of Timor-Leste, officially the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste (; ) is the head of state of the Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. The executive powers of the president are limited; however, the P ...

), 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 languages of South Asia, South and classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages, Southeast Asian lan ...

, 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 Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician, and dictator, who was the second and longest serving president of Indonesia, serving from 1967 to 1998. His 32 years rule, cha ...

's resignation in 1998, new President

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

released Pamungkas, Pakpahan, and Gusmão.

Abu Bakar Bashir Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (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 Tauhid. He ran the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Ngruki, Central ...

, the spiritual leader of Islamist terrorist group,

Jemaah Islamiyah Jemaah Islamiyah (, ''al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmiyyah'', meaning "Islamic Congregation", frequently abbreviated JI) was a Southeast Asian Islamist militant group based in Indonesia, which was dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in ...

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

2002 Bali bombing The 2002 Bali bombings were a series of terrorist attacks on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attacks killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, and people ...

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, 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