KontraS, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence has drawn the conclusion that from January to October this year, 107 people have been injured as a result of acts of violence.The commission also stated that as many as 81 acts of violence occurred in Papua.Thirty-one of these people died as a result of their injuries. A spokesperson for KontraS, Sri, said that KontraS believes that since January this year, scores of acts of violence have engulfed Papua.
In a press release issued on 26 October, she said that at least thirty-one people had died and 107 people had been injured.
This press release was issued in Jakarta together with several other NGOs, including NAPAS, BUK and YAPHAM. The NGOs were keen to draw attention to the current situation in Papua which is becoming increasingly tense.
KontraS believes that there are serious restrictions to democracy in Papua .
‘It is a serious challenge for civil society to criticise the policy being pursued by the government,’ said KontraS
A Papuan activist n Jakarta, Martin Goo said that the continuing suppression of democracy in Papua has triggered a number of conflicts in Papua. There has also been an intensification of acts of terrorism which, he said, were being perpetrated by certain groups who are against the people’s struggle for justice,
TAPOL Press release President’s visit prompts fresh concerns about arms sales and training of anti-terror police
30 October 201
British-funded training of Indonesia’s anti-terror police, Special Detachment 88, should be reviewed in the light of serious concerns about the unit’s human rights record and its operations in Papua, says TAPOL ahead of a state visit to London by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 31 October to 2 November 2012.
In the run-up to the visit TAPOL, which promotes human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia, is also appealing for an immediate ban on the sale to Indonesia of any military equipment that may be used for internal repression.
“While British businesses are no doubt eagerly anticipating the President’s visit, victims of human rights abuses will derive little comfort from the prospect of increased arms sales and ongoing training of Indonesian security forces,” says Paul Barber, Coordinator of TAPOL.
As the UK government prepares a state welcome for President Yudhoyono, rights groups from the UK and beyond are organizing an alternative welcome at a demonstration on behalf of the victims of human rights abuses outside Downing Street from 13:00 to 14:30 on Wednesday 31 October.
While Indonesia has made substantial progress in its transition from dictatorship to democracy since the downfall of former President Suharto in May 1998, serious human rights concerns remain.
“The news that the President is to receive a prestigious honour from the Queen is a gross affront to those who have suffered violations at the hands of successive Indonesian governments,” said Barber [1].
Special Detachment 88, known as ‘Densus 88’ was formed after the Bali bombings in 2002 to combat terrorism, but is reportedly being deployed to tackle other issues, such as alleged separatism in Indonesia’s conflict-affected provinces. Local civil society monitors say Densus 88 is being used to crack down on the Papuan independence movement, and the unit has been implicated in the assassination of its leaders, such as Mako Tabuni who was shot dead in June this year.
The unit is trained at the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, JCLEC, which received a minimum of £400,000 in funding from Britain in the financial year 2011/12, as well as training provided by British officers. These include the UK’s South East Asia Counter Terrorism & Extremism Liaison Officer Detective Superintendent Phil Tucker; former Metropolitan Police Commander Bob Milton, and David Gray, an officer from the Counter Terrorism Command at New Scotland Yard who sits on JCLEC’s Board of Supervisors and has been teaching on the course since August 2009.
In July this year, leading Indonesian human rights NGO, KontraS, published research which stated that Densus 88 operations commonly involved arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, physical abuse and injury causing death [2].
Indonesia has been identified by the UK as a priority market for defence sales, with Prime Minister David Cameron boosting the export effort when he visited Jakarta with arms company executives in April 2012. The value of approved arms export licences has risen dramatically under the coalition government. The use of British equipment such as Hawk jets, armoured personnel carriers and water cannon for internal repression has been widely documented over the years and was acknowledged by the British Government in the 1990s. UK Tactica vehicles have been used to crush protest on the streets of Jakarta as recently as March this year, and are used by Indonesia’s notorious paramilitary police unit Brimob.
During the President’s visit, groups including TAPOL, Down to Earth, Survival International, Progressio and Christian Solidarity Worldwide will be highlighting these and other key issues, including Human Rights in Papua; The Need for Dialogue in Papua; Freedom of Expression; Rights, Livelihoods and Climate Justice; Religious Intolerance; and Timor-Leste and Impunity.
Information on these issues is set out in a briefing available here.
ENDS
Contact: Paul Barber on 01420 80153 / 07747 301 739 or Esther Cann on 07503 400 308.
Notes:
1. President Yudhoyono will reportedly be awarded the Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Bath by the Queen during his visit.
2. KontraS report on Densus 88 available from TAPOL on request
Statement/ Media safety briefing from Oktovianus Pogau, SuaraPapua.com
October 27, 2012
I (Oktovianus Pogau, a journalist at suarapapua.com and a freelancer for The Jakarta Globe) will report on a beating that I experienced, perpetrated by police in Manokwari, West Papua.
Journalist Oktovianus Pogau (Photo: Andreas Harsono)
On the 24th October, 2012, at around 16.00 Eastern Indonesian Time, I was accompanied by three journalists, two from Cahaya Papua (Duma Sanda and Patrick Tandilerung) and one journalist from Tabloid Noken (Jo Kelwulan) to Manokwari police station to meet with the Chief of Police for Manokwari, AKBP Agustinus Supriyanto S.Ik, as had been arranged on the evening of Tuesday (23/10) with the officer.
The Chief of Police had initially stated that he was not aware if members of the force had beat up journalists, then, when many journalists from Jakarta began to call the station inquiring about the incident, Supriyanto became adamant that there were no beatings of journalists by police.
Then, continued Supriyanto, 5-10 minutes later at around 20.00 Eastern Indonesian Time, there was a brief message from me to his phone (whereas I sent him an SMS at 13.29 WIT, 30 minutes after the beating) which stated that there had been a beating and that my neck had been strangled while I was covering an action by Komite Nasional Papua Barat (KNPB) (National West Papuan Committee) on Tuesday 23/10 in front of Kampus Universitas Negeri Papua (Unipa) (Papuan State University) which was supporting an international lawyers meeting in London.
Then, the Chief of Police conveyed himself as the supervisor and manager of all the police in Manokwari, Papua Barat, and didn’t question that the media publish (when shown the news headlines in Cahaya Papua which detailed the violence perpetrated by members of the police force against me) news about the aforementioned incident.
Supriyanto said that the relationships between all journalists in West Papua, particularly in Manokwari, is really good, and because of this, he personally regrets the incident of the beating, and in fact, was surprised that a member of the force would do something like this to a journalist.
Supriyanto said that he wished to offer a personal apology for the incident. He also said that there was also a possibility that the incident occurred because the police didn’t realise I was a journalist, and that they were also carried away with the emotion of the moment.
Because of this, the Chief of Police firmly requested that I identify the men responsible for the incident so they could be subject to due legal processes, as in line with my request.
However, Supriyanto also suggested that the case didn’t have to be resolved amicably, that is, to be resolved by making peace with the offenders. According to the chief of police, it could be a rather difficult process to find the offenders, as there were many members in the force, and certainly no-one would be honest, but he said again that it depended on me.
After the chief of police opened this conversation, he gave us all the chance to talk. Duma Sanda explained that there was an issue of freedom of the press, in which the work of journalists is universal, meaning, it doesn’t mean that just because I didn’t live and become a journalist in Manokwari, I didn’t have the right to cover the demonstration by KNPB.
Duma also firmly requested that the Chief of Police teach the men to respect the profession of journalism, and also to respect journalists like myself. And, to make himself clearer, Duma also requested that the Chief listen to a chronological account of the beating I experienced.
I introduced myself (officially) to the Chief of Police. I told him about my work writing news for the paper Papua Pos Nabire and Tabloid JUBI during high school, about writing several columns in Tabloid Suara Perempuan Papua, the newspaper Bintang Papua, along with Papua Pos Nabire. And I conveyed to him that I’d also covered stories for The Jakarta Globe and that this is still continuing, and then that I established suarapapua.com as an online media outlet.
I explained to the Chief of Police in chronological order the incident of the beating (you can read my previous email). After this, I conveyed a number of important issues to the Chief of Police that have to be understood about the incident of the beating.
I said that firstly, his men had violated the article KUHP on disorder; secondly, the men had violated article UU Kebebasan Pers 1999 (UU on Freedom of the Press 1999) by preventing the work of a journalist; thirdly the UU anti-discrimination; and fourthly, Intelligence didn’t have the authority to capture let alone beat someone and certainly they violated their work code.
Because of this, I requested that the problem not be resolved amicably/peacefully, but should be followed up through a more direct process of law. I said that it was important that the police officers be aware, and law enforcement officers should be an example, that if there are officers who are at fault, then they have to be punished as criminals so that the public can know.
The incident when shots were fired by the police at KNPB demonstrators who were calling for a referendum has provoked many responses.
Forum Anti-Kekerasan – the Anti Violence Forum – (FAK) has initiated an investigation into this incident.which resulted in KNPB activists being wounded as well as some members of the police.
‘We will collect data to determined what injuries were inflicted on KNPB activists, who were the victims, what kind of injuries they suffered. Everything needs to be clear,’ said the chairman of FAK, Frans JP Kareth.
He went on to say that FAK along with legal organisations in West Papua intend to investigate this use of violence during scuffles between demonstrators and members of the police force, so as to draw together the facts. FAK said that it does not take sides between KNPB activists and the police but intends to establish the facts of what happened. ‘The police claim that that their actions to disperse the KNPB demonstration were in accordance with procedures but FAK intends to establish whether legal violations occurred. Our aim is to investigate the facts in order to reveal the case to the public.’
‘If any of the victims wish to take the matter to court, they are perfectly entitled to do so,’ he said.
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Images from the demonstration, including live round Pindad MU11-TJ cartridges (not MU11-H blanks as claimed by Indonesian Police) (Images Supplied from KNPB).
also
West Papua National Authority condemns the use of violence against peaceful demonstration
‘The use of excessive force used by the police in Manokwari is a violation of basic human rights’, said the governor of Doberai, according to Markus Yenu in a press release.
‘The police should never use force to disperse a peaceful action. This only leads to feelings of hatred towards the police. ‘ The spokesperson of the WPNA. Elimelek Kaiway said that the police had acted in violation of Law 9/1998 on freedom of expression. He went on to say that the scuffles between the police and members of the KNPB had occurred in order to destroy the reputation of the Papuan pro-independence movement and force the demonstators to use anarchic methods. He said that the the WPNA will collaborate with the KNPB to investigate the use of force which led to a number of injuries suffered by KNPB activists and members of the police force.
Meanwhile, the chief of police in Manokwari, Agustus Suprianto said that the actions taken by the police were in accordance with established procedures. ‘The police were forced to take firm action,’ he said, ‘because the demonstrators had acted anarchically by throwing things at the police.’
October 23, 2012
I’m going to describe the beating I (Oktovianus Pogau, Journalist) http://www.suarapapua.com experienced by the Manokwari district police in front of Papua State University campus in Manokwari, West Papua, on the afternoon of Tuesday 23rd October.
At about 10.00 am Eastern Indonesian Time I arrived at the place of the incident, in front of the Papua State University campus. I saw around 300 armed officers holding/restraining a crowd of 300 people. The crowd was planning on marching to Lapangan Borarsi, Manokwari. There were three trucks blocking the road, and also 1 TNI (military) truck with dozens of personnel.
There were negotiations between the police and the crowd. Police requested the crowd express their opinion there, on the main road, in front of the campus. The crowd insisted on continuing to Lapangan Borarsi. There was some commotion, then the crowd yielded and didn’t continue to Lapangan Borarsi (except) for a few people who continued there to wait for another crowd of demonstrators to arrive.
At about 10.40 am Eastern Indonesian Time, a police officer neared the crowd and took a photo. The crowd didn’t accept this, and moved nearer to the police and requested that they not take photos so close. Then, several people from the crowd spontaneously threw rocks in the direction of the officers, and from here, the officers responded brutally. Hundreds of people dispersed and the officers loosed thousands of shots in front of the campus Uncen. 11 people were arrested. 2 people suffered from gunshot wounds.
At this time I wasn’t far from where this was happening. I was trying to take footage and photos. A plain-clothed police officer approached me and told me to leave the area in a rude tone. I told him I was a journalist and carried a press card. He demanded I show him my card. I found my wallet so I could show him my card but suddenly a police officer in full uniform turned up. The officer strangled my neck and threatened me, so that I’d leave to the action. I resisted and said I was a journalist, then three more officers in uniform came and barked at me, ‘Where’s your press card . . . where’s your press card.’ I moved to look for it, but one of the police threw punches at my face and lips.
At this time my neck was aching from the strangulation by the officer and my lip was swollen and bleeding. Then several of my journalist friends came and stopped them and said I was a journalist, and only then did they release me.
West Papua Media Alerts 