E/CN.4/2000/4/Add.2 page 14 53. The Working Group welcomes the important amnesty measures announced by President Habibie. Nonetheless, it has received a number of criticisms concerning the following issues: The inadequate transparency of these measures (the decrees are rarely published) does not permit verification of the number of the beneficiaries (240 according to a Minister, 200 according to an official document), nor their identification; According to information received from a variety of sources, a number of individuals released after serving their sentence or from detention are officially portrayed as having benefited from an amnesty; The absence of legal or judicial criteria for granting amnesty has resulted in cases of discrimination. The Group was told, for example, of the release of all the Islamic militants involved in the events of Lampung 4 and who had all been sentenced to heavy prison terms, sometimes to life imprisonment, whereas other prisoners sentenced to lighter terms (for example, certain members of the PRD) remain in prison. III. DYSFUNCTIONS IN THE OPERATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM ENCOUNTERED BY THE WORKING GROUP Cases of arbitrary detention and their causes 54. In accordance with its methods of work, the Working Group considers “arbitrary” any deprivation of liberty which falls within one of the three categories mentioned hereunder. Indonesia is not a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, however the Government is examining the possibility of ratifying it. The Group has, accordingly, considered it useful to underline issues which would raise problems of incompatibility with provisions of the Covenant, so that the Government may take these observations into account in the process of adapting domestic laws to the provisions of the Covenant. Category I 55. Under Category I of the Working Group’s methods of work, deprivation of liberty is considered arbitrary when it is impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty. 56. The Group interviewed several members of the People’s Democratic Party (Partai Rakyat Demokratik) (PRD) who had been detained without warrant, without access to lawyers, without being brought before a judge or judicial officer and without trial or judgment from 12 March 1998 to the end of April 1998. They were detained in a public area in a Jakarta hospital on 12 March and taken to an unknown location - which they believe to have been the camp of the special forces command (KOPASSUS) at Cinjantung, Jakarta situated approximately an hour's drive from the place of arrest, where they were held incommunicado in underground cells.