Jayapura. West
Papua Police have arrested 10 people for raising the banned Morning
Stag flag, a symbol of Papuan independence, during a rally in Manokwari
on Thursday.
Authorities
say they were cracking down on subversion against the state, while
Amnesty International called on Friday for an investigation into human
rights violations perpetrated by the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob).
A
reported 100 people joined a long march in Manokwari, the West Papuan
capital, to commemorate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous
People on Thursday, carrying the Morning Star flag and waving it for an
hour in front of the local office of the Papuan Customary Council (DAP).
Police reportedly arrested up to 10 people from the crowd, accusing them of being involved in a seditious act.
“You
can organize rallies, but don’t bring [Morning Star] flags with the
intention of opposing the state. That is called subversion,” Papua
Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Yohanes Nugroho said in Jayapura on Friday.
“We have seized the flag as evidence,” he added.
Yohanes said police also arrested two men in Serui, the Papua district of Yapen Islands, for raising another Morning Star flag
while calling themselves citizens of the Federal Republic of West Papua.
The
secretary of the West Papua National Authority, Topan, said police not
only seized the flag, but also some documents and electronic equipment.
“They
seized all attributes [carried by protesters]. Some were beaten,” Topan
said, as quoted by Indonesian news portal tempo.co.
The
Morning Star flag is an especially contentious symbol. Papuan Filep
Karma is currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for raising what the
government calls the “separatist” Morning Star flag in 2004 in
Jayapura.
In
a statement issued on their website on Friday, Amnesty International
called for an “independent and impartial investigation into reports that
police used unnecessary and excessive force to disperse a peaceful
demonstration.”
Amnesty
called the arrests “arbitrary,” and said that according to their local
sources, “some [demonstrators were] reportedly beaten by security forces
during their arrest . . . Indonesian security forces then fired their
guns into the air to disperse the protesters.”
“The
rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are guaranteed in
Articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which Indonesia is a state party,” Amnesty
International’s website read. “ . . . Amnesty International has
documented dozens of other cases of arbitrary arrest and detention in
past years of peaceful political activists in Papua.”
But
Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and
security affairs, said in 2011 that detained Papuan activists are not
political prisoners, but criminals who have broken the law. Djoko called
the distinction a matter of perception.