https://www.ohchr.org/SP/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27494&LangID=E
GENEVA (20 September 2021) – Indonesia must provide West Papuan human rights
defender Victor Yeimo with proper medical care to keep him from dying in prison, a UN
human rights expert said today.
Despite repeated requests from his lawyers for a delay on medical grounds, Mr. Yeimo
went on trial in a Jayapura court at the end of August on charges of treason and incitement
related to his peaceful involvement in anti-racism and self-determination protests in 2019.
“I’ve seen it before: States deny medical care to ailing, imprisoned human rights
defenders, which results in serious illness or death,” said Mary Lawlor, UN Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. “Indonesia must take urgent
steps to ensure the fate does not await Mr. Yeimo.”
For months, Indonesia authorities have restricted his access to medical care, “and now
his health is critical and his life could be in danger,” she added.
As part of his work, Mr. Yeimo, 39, had provided information to the international media
about human rights in West Papua in his capacity as international spokesperson for
he West Papuan National Committee (KNPB) and the Papuan People’s Petition (PRP).
He was imprisoned in May 2021.
In June, Lawlor and other UN experts raised with the Indonesia government
their concerns about the charges against Mr. Yeimo and the level of medical care he
was receiving.
“We expressed concern at reports we were receiving that he was being held in solitary
confinement, without medical care, in a cramped, poorly ventilated cell, and with limited
access to his family and lawyers,” Lawlor said. The Indonesian Government disputed
these allegations.
Lawlor said his prison conditions “may have amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment.” Once his trial started last month, “it took a court order to
eventually get him the treatment he badly needed.”
However, “I believe that now we’re seeing the consequences of his treatment in
-ventilated living quarters, which if he does not receive, could have fatal consequences.”
Lawlor said the treatment of Yeimo appeared to form part of a pattern of retaliation
against defenders of human rights in Papua and West Papua, an issue UN experts
have previously raised with the Indonesian government. Since conflicts in the two
provinces in August and September 2019, Lawlor has written to the Indonesian
Government expressing concern that human rights defenders are being treated like criminals.
“Now I beg Indonesia to protect Mr. Yeimo’s life, health and well-being by providing him
with the basic care he so desperately needs.”
Ms. Lawlor’s call was endorsed by Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur
on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Tlaleng Mofokeng,
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of physical and mental health;and E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur
on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
ENDS
Ms. Mary Lawlor (Ireland) is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights
defenders. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Business and Human Rights in
Trinity College Dublin. She was the founder of Front Line Defenders - the International
Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. As Executive Director from
2001-2016, she represented Front Line Defenders and had a key role in its development.
Ms. Lawlor was previously Director of the Irish Office of Amnesty International from 1988 to
2000, after becoming a member of the Board of Directors 1975 and being elected its
President from 1983 to 1987.
Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Proceduresof the Human
Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN
Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and
monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic
issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures' experts work on a voluntary
basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are
independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
For more information and media requests
please contact Orsolya Toth (+41 22 917 9913 / orsolya.toth@un.org )
or write to OHCHR-defenders@un.org
For media enquiries regarding other UN independent experts,
please contact Jeremy Laurence (+ 41 22 917 7578 / jeremy.laurence@un.org).
Follow news related to the UN's independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts.
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