Rights group condemn arrest of 15 Papuan activists

Arrests target pro-independence activists, indigenous people fighting for their rights, it says.

Police and military personnel disperse a prayer service attended by mostly members of the pro-independence West Papua National Committee (KNPB) on April 5 in Timika. (Photo courtesy KNPB)

Jakarta:  A coalition of rights groups have condemned the recent arrests of 15 members of the pro-independence West Papua National Committee (KNPB), calling the detentions yet another example of state oppression of the Papuan people.

"President Joko Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla have only been in office for 18 months during which time more than 1,000 arrests have been made in Papua," said the groups that included Papua itu Kita (Papua is for us), in a joint statement issued on April 6.

"The arrests target pro-independence activists, indigenous people fighting for their rights, as well as ordinary people who are simply victims of the whims of security personnel," the statement said.

The 15 pro-independence activists were arrested on April 5 in Papua’s Mimika district while they were attending a prayer service.

The service was held to pray for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, an umbrella group for the three main political groups struggling for independence, to be accepted as a member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group is an intergovernmental organization comprising Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu, as well as the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, a political party from New Caledonia.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua currently has observer status.

Arrests and violence by security personnel intensified in Papua after the movement was granted observer status in June last year, the joint statement said.

The government is being paranoid, said Zely Ariane, coordinator of the Papua itu Kita group that looks into issues concerning the Papuan people.

"The United Liberation Movement for West Papua is a new page in the political consolidation in Papua. Its presence shows, among others, the Papuan people's never-ending aspiration to determine their own fate," she told ucanews.com.

She said, "the government continues to use a paranoid, exploitative and repressive approach."

Of the 15 people arrested on April 5, 13 were released the following day after undergoing interrogation, according to KNPB spokesman Bazooka Logo.

"Two members, including Stevel Itlay the chairman of the Timika chapter of the KNPB, are still being detained in a police station in the area and are being threatened with a treason charge," he told ucanews.

Papua Peace Network coordinator, Father Neles Tebay, also criticized the arrests, saying that the KNPB is a peaceful political organization that is calling for a referendum on the independence issue.

"Arresting so many members of the organization and putting them in jail will not resolve the main political issue," the Catholic priest from from Jayapura Diocese told ucanews.com.

"What we need right now is for the government and the Papuan groups fighting for independence to sit down and talk to find a solution to Papua's problems."

Source: UCAN