West Papuan
independence campaigners have called for the release of an activist who has
been put on trial for treason after he helped gather signatures for a petition
Yanto
Awerkion was arrested for his involvement in a pro-independence petition which gathered more than
1.8m West Papuan signatures.
The
petition, calling for a free vote on independence, had been outlawed by
Indonesian authorities but was smuggled out of the region and delivered to the United
Nations in September.
The 27-year-old
man is deputy chair of the Timika branch of the pro-independence West
Papua National Committee (KNPB). According to his supporters he was
arrested after getting on stage to speak about the petition at an event in May.
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The Free
West Papua campaign said Awerkion’s health had seriously deteriorated in jail,
and he had not been able to see his wife and daughter.
If convicted
on the charges relating to sedition and separatism, conspiracy and incitement
to commit an offence, Awerkion could face a prison term of between six years
and life.
His trial
was scheduled to begin in Timika on Tuesday.
In a video
filmed from prison for the Free West Papua movement, Awerkion described himself
as a political prisoner.
“Because of
struggling for Free West Papua, I was arrested by the Indonesian military and
police, and I remain in prison,” he said.
He called
for international diplomats to “unite and urge the world and the United Nations
to intervene in West Papua and to immediately organise a referendum in West Papua”.
A spokesman
for the Indonesian embassy in Australia, Sade Bimantara, said the rights of
people to “peacefully voice their opinions” were protected under Indonesian
law, but “when laws are broken, the authorities will act to enforce the law”.
This
included activities supporting or inciting acts that aim to “take over or
separate a part of the Indonesian territory and the formation of a new state in
its place”, he told Guardian Australia.
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Bimantara did
not detail Awerkion’s alleged actions, but said “separatist groups in Papua and
West Papua have been found to commit a number of offences”, and noted the death
of a policeman last year.
Awerkion is
not believed to be facing charges involving violence. Bimantara said that was a
matter for the prosecutor.
The petition
asked the UN to “put West Papua back on the decolonisation committee agenda and
ensure their right to self‐determination … is respected by holding an internationally supervised
vote”.
West Papua
was annexed by Indonesia in 1963, an act formalised six
years later with a widely discredited UN-supervised vote known as the Act of
Free Choice. The only voters were 1,063 people selected by the military and
compelled to vote in favour of Indonesian annexation.
“In the West
Papuan people’s petition we hand over the bones of the people of West Papua to
the United Nations and the world,” exiled independence leader Benny Wenda told
the UN when the petition was handed over.
“After
decades of suffering, decades of genocide, decades of occupation, we open up
the voice of the West Papuan people which lives inside this petition. My people
want to be free.”
Indonesian
foreign ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir said at the time the petition
was “purely a publicity stunt with no credibility”.
The petition
also called for the appointment of a special representative to investigate
human rights abuses but was ultimately rebuffed by the UN’s decolonisation
committee because West Papua was outside its mandate.
There are
frequent reports of mass arrests and violence by Indonesian police and military forces
against separatists and their supporters, but information is difficult to
verify because of restrictions on foreign media entering the territory.
The leader
of the Greens, Richard Di Natale, called for the Australian government to make
entreaties on behalf of Awerkion and other prisoners, and to support West
Papua’s calls for a UN-backed referendum.
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