2) Melanesian journalists call on Indonesian government to stop criminalizing journalism
3) 'Indonesia is not just Java': Teacher in rural Papua pleads with Nadiem to listen
4) Indonesia plans spaceport in West Papua
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https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/11/14/teenage-protesters-released-from-detention-in-papua.html
1) Teenage protesters released from detention in Papua
Benny Mawel The Jakarta Post
Jayapura / Thu, November 14, 2019 / 03:30 pm
A protester in an antiracism rally in Central Jakarta holds banner that reads “Papuans are not monkeys”. The protesters held the rally to urge the government to solve the racial abuse case against Papuan students in Surabaya, East Java. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
Four students detained by police in antiracism protests that turned violent in Wamena and Timika, Papua, in September have been released because they are under the age of 18.
The students’ lawyer, Gustav Kawer, said that they had been detained for over a month.
“Two in Timika and two in Wamena – all were released on a diversion program because they are underage,” Gustav told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
A 2012 law on the child criminal justice system stipulates that children in the justice system must be put into diversion programs.
Gustav said one of his clients in Wamena was arrested on Sept. 30 after being treated for bullet wounds suffered during the protest.
He said his clients were not processed according to the correct legal procedures, that they had been kept in a storage room rather than a cell and that the diversion process had been unnecessarily prolonged.
Papua People's Assembly (MRP) chairman Timotius Murib said that underage detainees should be processed quickly according to prevailing laws.
“These children are the future so they should be handled correctly so that they are free from collective trauma,” he said.
If not, “they might not be proud of being part of this nation,” Timotius added. (kmt)
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2) Melanesian journalists call on Indonesian government to stop criminalizing journalism
Dyaning Pangestika The Jakarta Post
Jakarta / Thu, November 14, 2019 / 05:35 pm
Journalists from Melanesian countries are urging the Indonesian government to put a stop to criminalizing journalism, following concerns about growing threats to media freedom in the country.
During the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum at Griffin University in Brisbane, Australia, several journalists who represent media from Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and West Papua called on Indonesia, as well as the governments of their own countries, to take action to secure the future of journalism.
“We call on the Indonesian government to stop killing and prosecuting journalists,” the forum members’ said in a written statement received by The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The journalists also demanded the Indonesian government investigate and bring to justice those who are responsible for attacks on journalists, end state-sponsored misinformation about West Papua, stop racist stigmatization of indigenous West Papuan journalists and allow access by foreign journalists, parliamentarians and independent observers to West Papua.
The forum members also demanded the government obtain a better understanding of the role of journalism in Melanesian democracies.
"Awareness of the accountability role played by journalists and the need for them to be able to exercise their professional skills without fear is critical to the functioning of our democracies," they said.
The Melanesian Media Freedom members stated that they are ready to collaborate with all parties that wish to improve the social media landscape.
"There is an urgent need for the media to assert its role as a source of accurate and impartial information and to play a role in building social media literacy and public understanding of how to identify credible sources of information," they said.
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3) 'Indonesia is not just Java': Teacher in rural Papua pleads with Nadiem to listen
News Desk The Jakarta Post
Jakarta / Thu, November 14, 2019 / 07:50 am
A teacher in the rural area of Mappi, Papua, has written an open letter to Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim asking him to pay more attention to the quality of school facilities in the village where she teaches.
The letter, titled "Miss, we are Afraid that the Table will Collapse," was written by Diana Christiana Da Costa Ati, a member of Rural Area Activator Teacher (GPDT) in Mappi regency. She was assigned to be a teacher in Kaibusene village ─ located around nine hours by boat from Mappi’s Assue district.
In the letter, which she posted on her Facebook account last week, she said her school’s classrooms did not have proper chairs or tables for the students. The students also lacked school uniforms, as well as books and pencils of their own, she said.
Diana said she decided to write the letter after a chair in the classroom, which she described as more of a storage room than a classroom, suddenly broke when a student tried to sit on it.
The students tried to write on the tables, but they creaked and scared the students.
“A student said to me, ‘Miss, we are afraid that the table will collapse.’ We no longer cared about the chairs and the tables; all of us decided to sit on the floor while [the students] learned to write the alphabet,” Diana wrote in the letter.
The school had only three classrooms to accommodate students from the first to the sixth grade. This meant students of two different grades had to share one classroom together.
Only two teachers were assigned to teach the approximately 50 students in the school. Diana has taught in the elementary school in Kaibusene since November of last year.
She also asked whether the School Operational Assistance (BOS) funds allocated by the government had been properly disbursed.
In her letter, Diana asked Nadiem to listen to her aspirations and concerns about the state of educational institutions for children in remote areas of the country’s easternmost province.
“Indonesia is not just Java. We [Papua] are also Indonesia,” Diana said, “Indonesia is not just big and advanced cities where app-based education programs can be easily accessed through [smartphones]. Those in remote areas who are still learning the alphabet are also Indonesia.” (gis)
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4) Indonesia plans spaceport in West Papua
9:52 am today
Indonesia has announced plans to construct its first spaceport in West Papua.
An official with the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space said the site would be in Biak island, with plans for a test launch in 2024.
Citing the Kompas newspaper, the Jakarta Post quoted Robertus Heru Trijahyanto as saying Biak regency's vast area made it an ideal location.
The institute's head, Thomas Djamaluddin, said the spaceport would be supported by international partnerships.
In 2006, Russia signed an agreement to use Biak as a blast-off site for satellites, but it never eventuated.
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