Journalist Faces Defamation Probe for Comparing Indonesia’s Treatment of West Papua with Myanmar’s Rohingya

Indonesian police in East Java are investigating a veteran journalist for comparing former President Megawati Sukarnoputri to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in a Facebook post.

On September 3, 2017, journalist and documentary filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono wrote on Facebook that Megawati and Suu Kyi are alike in many ways, noting that both are former opposition leaders who now head the ruling parties in their respective countries. Dandhy added that if Myanmar’s government is being criticized for its treatment of ethnic Rohingya, the Indonesian government should similarly be held liable for suppressing the independence movement on the Indonesian island of West Papua.

He further compared Suu Kyi’s silence on the persecution of the Rohingya to Megawati’s role as party leader of the government, which has recently intensified the crackdown on West Papuan independence activists.

Rohingya people born and living in Myanmar are not recognized as citizens by the Myanmar government. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya civilians have been displaced from their homes due to clearing operations of the Myanmar military in response to attacks by a pro-Rohingya insurgent group in northwest Myanmar. Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, who are mostly Muslim, are crossing into Bangladesh to escape the fighting.

West Papua is a province of Indonesia with a vocal independence movement that has called for the creation of a separate state since the 1960s. Human rights groups have documented many cases of abuse committed by Indonesian state forces against activists, journalists, and other individuals suspected of supporting the independence movement.

Dandhy posted his comments on Facebook following a big rally was organized by Muslim groups in Indonesia, condemning the Myanmar government for its treatment of Rohingya refugees.

The youth arm of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) filed a defamation complaint against Dandhy on September 6:

On the whole, (Dandhy’s) opinion was clearly intended to take advantage of the Rohingya incidents in Myanmar in order to insult and spread hatred of Megawati Soekarnoputri as the chairwoman of PDI-P and Joko Widodo as the president who is backed by PDI-P.

He is now under investigation by the police cyber crime unit. If he is prosecuted for and convicted of defamation, Dandhy could face up to four years in prison.

Reacting to the complaint, Dandhy wrote that it is a minor issue compared to the injustices suffered by Papuan activists and Rohingya refugees.

The complaint is the latest case of how the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law is being used to silence dissent in the country.

According to Indonesian digital rights group SAFEnet, at least 35 activists have been charged with online defamation since its enactment in 2008. Aside from Dandhy’s case, the group has documented six defamation charges involving activists and journalists in 2017.

Activists were quick to launch a campaign expressing support to Dandhy. They asserted that Dandhy was simply expressing an opinion which should be considered legitimate criticism and not a criminal act.

SAFEnet is encouraging Indonesian netizens to submit reports and testimonies about how the ITE Law is being abused to silence activists like Dandhy and suppress online free speech in general.

Instead of preventing the public from commenting on Megawati, a local investigative portal suggested that Dandhy’s case could in fact trigger greater interest in the former president’s legacy as a leader, including some of the issues that led to her defeat in the polls.

Souce: www.globalvoices.org

September 15, 2017 0

West Papua wants to interact more with MSG countries

SolomonStarNews.com, Published: 13 July 2016

West Papua says it wants more interaction with members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.

The intention was relayed yesterday to the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare in Honiara by the visiting General Secretary of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua, Octovinius Mote.

Mr Mote told Prime Minister Sogavare that West Papua would like to see more contacts in sports, especially in soccer with their Melanesian brothers in PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia.

He said West Papua would be interested in joining the Melanesian Cup soccer competition.

Mr Mote said as a start, West Papua would also like to send young West Papuans to study at the Solomon Islands National University in Honiara and in educational institutions in Vanuatu.

He added at a later date, students from West Papua could also be sent to study in PNG and Fiji.

Mr Mote is leading a three-member delegation of the ULMOWP to observe the Pacific Islands Development Forum Summit which begins in Honiara tomorrow (July 12).

By George Atkin,
OPMC Press Secretariat

July 13, 2016 0

The Muslim occupation of West Papua after Dutch granted independence

The Muslim Issue, How often do we hear how “bad” colonialism was? Whether it is from India, Africa or Papua New Guinea and West Papua we are painted a nightmarish picture of the “wicked white man” who is described to have “destroyed” the countries they ruled. But facts are different to these exaggerated left wing fairy tales of division and racism so common amongst the liberals. They have painted the crusaders, the brave Christian army that sacrificed their own lives to save Europe from Muslim takeover, in the same light.

The story of colonialism is different from natives who actually lived under colonialism. Unlike popular claims by left wingers and their historians, colonialism did far more good than bad and offered protecting of territories from the Muslim threat and other external threats. Read here what happened when the Dutch ‘colonialists’ tried to return Papua to its own people and left the country:

The Dutch colonialists tried to give Papua New Guinea and West Papua their independence back to the natives. There was no wars or attacks on the ‘colonialists’ needed for it and the natives gained their island back by appealing to the UN. The Dutch perfectly willingly decided to give it back to the people.

Note also in the story below that the natives and tribals had been able to live freely, protected, and by their own choice and natural lives in their jungles without interferences from the Dutch at all. So much so that they did not even know much about Dutch rule of their own country until after the Dutch left – quite contrary to the claims left wing writers tend to paint the picture. This testimony is the same one can find in India where many native people did not even know their country had been under British rule because they had never even seen an English man, and never had any interferences from the English into their lives for over three hundred years.

To return independence to this island the Dutch tried to prepare them for the task to avoid a Muslim takeover from neighboring Indonesia. Unfortunately the natives did not listen, grasp or take serious the groundwork the Dutch tried to create for them. Like many colonial societies they benefited from the protection and rule colonialism had given them, and did not imagine things would change drastic without it. West Papua, like the Dutch feared, quickly fell into Muslim hands once they had left and the natives have been living under Muslim oppression, rape, arson, threats and mass murders ever since.

August 2, 2015 0

West Papua movement gains steam

MARK COLVIN: ABC News – It’s been over 40 years since the UN recognised Indonesia’s control over West Papua. But many West Papuans believe that recognition, that that recognition known as the Act of Free Choice, was a sham, and they’ve resisted the Indonesian military ever since.

It’s been a complicated and often ferocious resistance. Human rights groups say that over 400,000 people have been killed. But recently, the independence movement’s been gaining steam. Last month, thousands of West Papuans rallied for independence in the biggest protests in a decade.

Clemens Runawery is a former West Papuan politician, who’s been involved with the independence movement since it began. He’s lived in exile ever since 1969, when Australian officials stopped him leaving Papua New Guinea to press the UN for a fair vote on independence. He spoke to me from Brisbane.

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: The younger generations in Papua are now eagerly and forcefully wanting to get out from Indonesian rule.

MARK COLVIN: So they don’t just want autonomy within Indonesia?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: They don’t want… Autonomy is not, it was just an appeasement strategy to show to the world ‘well yes we are offering an autonomy to Papuans’. But that is not what we wanted.

You know there are several types of autonomy that we look at. The Bougainville autonomy is coming up, the parliament of PNG have endorsed the referendum that will become in the next two or three years, in 2015. The people in Bougainville will say as to whether to remain within PNG or to cede from PNG.

MARK COLVIN: Do you think that Papuans want to be part of Papua New Guinea or do they want to be a completely independent state of their own; what do they want?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: They want to be completely independent on their own. Not to be part of Papua New Guinea. But once we are independent West Papuans can forge closer relationship with PNG because we are geographically and culturally one island with one, more or less, cultural identity and position.

MARK COLVIN: The Indonesians have used what they called transmigrasi to change the demographics of Papua; are Papuans, native Papuans likely to be outnumbered?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Oh yes. Well there are about 1.7 million indigenous Papuans and about 1.8 million non-Papuans so…

MARK COLVIN: So is it possible they could have a referendum and you would be simply out-voted because of that?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Yes, but then we need to define who are to go to the poll? And in our view, in my view, and we’ve been addressing this one quietly, the Indonesians who came after 1963 and born and grow up there, they will not be party to the referendum.

MARK COLVIN: You can imagine that they would be very frightened then that, you say 1.8 million people, that they….

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Yes …

MARK COLVIN: … might just have their homes taken away and be sent back to Java.

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: No, no, no. When the referendum takes place they will not be taking part with it, only the Melanesians, the Papuans, or Indigenous population will go to the poll. They will have to stay out. But after the referendum they have a choice to decide, either to remain or to go home. It’s up to them, we are not…

MARK COLVIN: Will they have …

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: …. going to change them.

MARK COLVIN: … the vote when you had an election, if you won the referendum?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Yes, if we won the referendum, or whichever way, but they will not be party or part of the referendum.

MARK COLVIN: Because there would be a danger of creating a new sort of Israel, a situation like Israel, wouldn’t there?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Oh not only that but we’re also observing what is happening in Fiji where the Indian Fijians are dominating the whole political and economical landscape there and we don’t want that to happen. So we need to address this issue right now and we have to talk openly about it.

And our position is…

MARK COLVIN: So you, just to be clear there, you approve of the political repression of Indian Fijians who have been there for generations?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: Oh yes.

MARK COLVIN: You approve of that?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: We don’t but we are learning from what is happening there. Demographic competition in Fiji is such that Fijians almost become minority, but what is happening there is that the Fijians still have a say, a lot of say, in the government bureaucracy and all that. But the natives…

MARK COLVIN: Fiji was working its way towards a fairly multicultural society and then there were a series of coups and the Fijians, as I say, repressed them.

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: That’s right but…

MARK COLVIN: But do you approve of that…

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: … that’s another angle.

MARK COLVIN: … do you think that’s how it ought to go?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: No, no…

MARK COLVIN: …that Melanesian people should have more political rights than people who are not Melanesian?

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: That is a very contentious issue…

MARK COLVIN: That’s why I’m asking.

CLEMENS RUNAWERY: …we need to establish a clear political landscape whereby indigenous have a lot of say but we must also allow the non-indigenous, who have been in Papua for, say, four decades, they can stay.

But the problem is this: who brought them in? They themselves came in through transmigrasi, nobody asked them to come, West Papuans never asked them to come, we never invaded Java with the vast majority of Papuans, no. So they have to listen, they have to have respect to the local community because they own the land.

In Melanesia, in Papua people are attached to the land, land is the mother. If you kill the mother then you kill your life, you future.

MARK COLVIN: Exiled former West Papuan politician, Clemens Runawery, now an active member of the country’s independence movement.

September 2, 2011 0