Hopes fading: Andrew Chan, left, and Myuran Sukumaran are on death row in Kerobokan Prison for drug smuggling. Photo: Ante Kesuma

Jakarta: Indonesia's President has entrenched his hard line against mercy for drug offenders on death row, stressing he "will never" grant them clemency.

Among those pleading for Joko Widodo's rescue from the firing squad are Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, lead members of the Bali Nine drug smugglers.

Mr Joko this month came out against clemency for drug offenders, who threatened to ruin Indonesia's future, he said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Photo: Reuters

On Thursday, he ramped up his rhetoric about the country's "drug emergency".

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"There are 64 [people] sentenced to death by the courts and as I've said about clemency request for drugs cases, I will never give clemency," he said at an event in Jakarta.

"Never will. Never will.

"I'm stressing this again and again so that it's all clear, so there will be no one who thinks that death penalty is [given] by the President.

"The sentence is from the courts and we don't give forgiveness or clemency."

Mr Joko received applause for the comments, made at a function in Jakarta.

Indonesia is preparing to carry out its first death sentences this year, with five or six offenders, Indonesians and Nigerians, to face the firing squad imminently.

Chan and Sukumaran, who are demonstrating their rehabilitation in Bali's Kerobokan jail, applied for clemency under previous president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who failed to act before he left office in October.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said other countries should respect Indonesia's legal processes, even though it campaigns to save its own citizens from execution overseas.

"When we talk about death sentence there's the process of others, and domestically, there's our process," he told reporters.

"We respect their process abroad and so they should also respect ours."

Indonesia's Justice Minister Yasonna Laoly has said he feels the death penalty is a "dilemma" and while he respects the courts, he doesn't personally support it.

But his spokesman Ferdinand Siagian this week echoed the President's views.

"Drugs are hurting people from elementary school students to university professors," he told AAP.

"And so I agree that we must finish drug dealers or we're losing a generation."

Human Rights Watch Indonesia spokesman Andreas Harsono says the new President's hardline stance is a betrayal of his promises to better protect human rights.

What's more, the President's idea it was "shock therapy" to others was incorrect.

"There are many studies that show the death sentence is not going to deter the drug trade," he said.

Indonesia and the death penalty

- There are 136 people now on death row in Indonesia

- 64 have been convicted of drug trafficking, two for terrorism, and the rest for murder and robbery

- Indonesia ended a four-year unofficial moratorium on the use of the death penalty on March 15, 2013, when it executed by firing squad Adami Wilson, a 48-year-old Malawian national

- There are reports that after the five executions this year, another 20 will follow next year.

AAP