Listen to Our Voice: Making the Case against Torture in Papua

Administrator: Ryan Schlief

Created: Jun 6, 08, Supporters: 8

Issues: Torture/ill treatment

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After her son was suspected of participating in protests lead by university students against a mining corporation, the Indonesian police apprehended Anselina Temkon from her home.

She was allegedly beaten with a gun, her hands burnt with cigarettes and, with a gun to her head, the police allegedly told her they were going to take her to a nearby town and “finish her off” if she did not disclose the whereabouts of her son.

Police reportedly detained Anselina for four days without access to visitors.

Anselina’s case is among the 242 individual cases of torture in Papua from 1998-2007 reported by human rights organizations. Not one perpetrator has been punished: in fact, only one case has ever been brought to court.

WITNESS partner SKP and others are trying to change this. SKP is the Office of Justice and Peace and is an advocacy organization a part of the Catholic Diocese of Jayapura, in the main city of Papua.

SKP and other organizations in Indonesia collectively submitted a report to the UN Committee against Torture in May on the widespread use of torture by the police and security forces. The Government’s obligations under the UN Convention against Torture were being reviewed at that time.

Strengthening its written submission and personal testimonies, SKP screened its video on torture in Papua, Listen to Our Voice, to members of the Committee. It responded with specific recommendations to the Government of Indonesia to ensure justice for torture survivors and to prevent the further use of torture in Papua.

More must be done, however, to ensure the Government of Indonesia follows through on these recommendations. Watch the interviews filmed by Franciscans International in Geneva with Rika from SKP and Anselina below and read the shadow report on torture in Papua at the SKP website. We will let you know when the video, Listen to Our Voice, is available on the Hub.

Background

Located on the western half of the island of New Guinea, Papua historically has been connected with the diverse lands of Melanesia. Papua remained a Dutch territory after Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands in 1945. For more than a decade, the Government of Indonesia, considering the land as part of its rightful domain, rejected the efforts by the Netherlands to decolonize Papua en route to its own independence.

International pressure and tensions between Indonesia and the Netherlands resulted in a 1962 agreement between the two parties in which the land was placed under a United Nations trusteeship before being transferred to Indonesia one year later.

The agreement mandated Indonesia to enable all adult resident nationals in Papua to participate in an act of self-determination. The Act of Free Choice was held in 1969 and about 1000 Papuan representatives voted unanimously for inclusion within Indonesia.

Questions concerning the legitimacy of the referendum, among other issues, form the core of the independence movement and fuel low-level armed resistance. The influx of migrants from other parts of Indonesia and the loss of land due to development projects have greatly influenced calls for Papuans to have a greater voice in their own affairs.

Papua, split as of 2004 into two provinces, is a sparsely populated, resource-rich land comprising about one-fifth of the total landmass of Indonesia. Three-quarters of its 2.7 million inhabitants live in rural areas.