2) Jokowi urged to fulfill and protect rights of laid-off workers at Freeport
A journalist working in West Papua in front of the Morning Star Flag — an international sign of the Free Papua Movement. Used via Wikipedia Commons license (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The island of New Guinea is divided into the independent state of Papua New Guinea on the eastern half and Indonesian-controlled Papua on the western side. Indonesia-controlled Papua has been further divided by the Indonesian government into Papua and West Papua. These are the provinces that have been fighting for independence for the last 60 years. Jakarta is considering further dividing the region into smaller provinces — against the wishes of scholars and indigenous communities in the region, who believe the move will decrease transparency and increase corruption in the region.
Papua has been occupied by Indonesia since 1962 after the Indonesian military invaded and annexed the province, despite assurances by the former colonial Dutch government of sovereignty for the Papuan nation. Since then, Papuans have faced decades of brutal oppression punctuated by massacres, torture, censorship, and conflict between the Indonesian army and West Papua National Liberation Army(TPNPB) that has left civilians as collateral. Some estimates suggest that over 500,000 Papuans have been killed by Indonesian military forces — though these are somewhat outdated estimates and the real toll is likely much higher.
In addition to its alleged human rights abuses, Indonesia has an abysmal record regarding press freedom in Papua. Activists and media workers in the region are routinely silenced through censorship, internet throttling, physical attacks, torture, and even death. According to some international reports, since current President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo became president in 2014, this persecution has gotten worse.
Harassment, violence, and threats
Local journalists in particular face intense harassment and scrutiny from the Indonesian government. Journalists have been jailed, beaten, doxxed, and targetted for speaking out about the vast human rights violations in West Papua. According to a 2021 Alliance of Independent Journalists Indonesia (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen – AJI) report, there have been 114 cases of violence against Papuan journalists in the past 20 years.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed these instances it's its 2015 report entitled “Something to hide?” The report revealed Papuan journalists routinely receive anonymous threats via text and voicemail, which they believe to be from Indonesian security forces. One local reporter told HRW:
I cannot count how many SMS, email, or social media [threats] that I have received. The accusations are always that I am a foreign agent. The threat is often to kill me, or to attack my office. Or burn my office. That’s why I often change my cell phone numbers. I have lost count of how many times. Maybe 300 times? I always think [the harassers] want to disturb me mentally. I always delete their threats. I don’t want to be influenced by them.
Other journalists, such as Duma Tato Sando, the managing editor at Chaya Papua, a daily newspaper in Manokwari, Papua told the group he is often pressured by security forces to not publish stories that mention human rights abuses. He said:
For me, covering human rights abuses in Papua is not easy. In Manokwari, usually an intelligence officer will call and ask that the news story be “pending.” They like to say, “please do not publish it.” Sometimes they even ask me for background information, such as places, names, and times [of incidents of human rights abuses] because they do not know that their own men did the beating or the shooting. I have too many cases [of such harassment] to recall one-by-one.
In another case just over one year ago, in April 2021, West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor’s car was vandalized in a clear act of targeted intimidation. At the time, the AJI said “these acts of terror and intimidation are clearly forms of violence against journalists, and threaten press freedom in Papua and more broadly in Indonesia.” Mambor is the founder of the Tabloid Jubi media outlet. He and his staff have faced numerous instances of harassment over the years, including physical, psychological, and digital attacks.
The situation is even more dire for women who choose to pursue journalism in Papua, like in the case of Elfira last February, who received a rape threat in Jayapura District Court while reporting on court proceedings.
Foreign media, NGOs, and humanitarian agencies have been largely denied access to West Papua, which has created challenges in holding the Indonesian government and security forces accountable. The Jakarta government has tightly controlled the flow of information from the region.
And even when foreign watchdogs or media are able to enter the region, they can seldom do so without a government escort, and are liable to face deportation if they upset authorities.
Some international journalists have managed to make unofficial visits to the region that were not pre-approved by the Indonesian government. Rohan Radheya, a Dutch freelance journalist interviewed by HRW said during his unofficial visits to Papua, he saw a pattern of daily “threats and intimidation” against Papuan journalists, adding, “They were good journalists, they have a good network, and some of the [Papuan journalists] I met, they have bullet holes, they have been stabbed by [Indonesian security] forces, and they continue to wake up in the morning and just go about and do their jobs.”
West Papuan censorship
The information block in West Papua has drawn international condemnation and tarnished Indonesia’s reputation on the international stage.
The censorship is especially blatant during times of conflict or strife. Actors in the West Papuan Independence movement have occasionally succeeded in drawing national attention to their campaign, which often consists of acts of civil disobedience and protest. In 2019 tensions came to a head after a racist incident against Papuan students in Surabaya by Indonesian military forces. In response, protests broke out in Papua, which police forces violently stamped out, killing 10 Papuan citizens in the process. This act of violence sparked widespread protests across the archipelago nation. During this period, the Indonesian government throttled network connections in West Papua to stop information from flowing outward, which Jokowi said was for the “common good.”
While Papuan media outlets struggled to share their stories during this time, reports emerged of human rights violations, oppression, military violence against civilians, and more.
Indonesia’s free press landscape
Even outside the press abuses in Papua, Indonesia’s media faces a challenging landscape. While Jokowi ran a presidential campaign promising to bolster Indoenisa’s free press, he has resoundingly failed on these promises since being elected in 2014.
In 2020, Jakarta passed the Law on “Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik” (Electronic and Information Transactions Law), which made it legal for the government to throttle internet services and arrest journalists for disrupting the peace and publishing “prohibited content.” The controversial law has drawn criticism from activists and human rights groups as many call it a major backstep for the largest democracy in the region.
Human rights watchdog Protection International said, “the ITE Law is actively used to silence criticism and obstruct the work of human rights defenders,” noting that there was a sharp increase of attacks against human rights defenders in 2019 and 2020.
The situation has only deteriorated as public attention was focused on the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to RSF reporting, journalists are banned from publishing not only “false information related to the coronavirus but also any information hostile to the president or government even if it is unrelated to the pandemic.”
According to Reporter’s Without Borders 2022 World Press Freedom Index, Indonesia ranked 117 out of 180 countries.
Jayapura, Jubi – Indonesian President Joko Widodo or Jokowi is urged to immediately follow up on the recommendations of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in 2017 and 2018 regarding the rights fulfillment of 8,300 laid-off workers of PT Freeport Indonesia.
Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Director Emanuel Gobay said that the strike of 8,300 Freeport workers was legal based on Manpower Law No. 13/2003 and therefore, they should have not been fired for going on strike.
Gobay said these workers who had been laid off were entitled to wages. He urged Jokowi and the Minister of Manpower to immediately order PT Freeport Indonesia to pay the wages of the laid-off workers.
In 2017, Freeport applied a furlough policy (the placement of an employee on leave without pay), which reaped protests from its workers. Even though the worker union of Freeport had sent letters to the company to reject the policy three times and negotiated, Freeport ignored the union’s request. Therefore, the union notified the company that they went on strike starting May 1, 2017, until there were negotiations with the Mimika Manpower and Transmigration Agency,
“They have sent a notification letter for the strike. The strike itself is a basic right of workers and worker unions, as stipulated in Article 137 paragraph 1 of Manpower Law,” Gobay said in a written statement received by Jubi in Jayapura on Sunday, May 1, 2022.
However, in the midst of the strike, Freeport unilaterally laid 8,300 of them off and terminated their basic salary and health care and social security (BPJS). Whereas according to Article 145 of Manpower Law, workers who strike have the right to receive wages.
In 2017, the union complained to Komnas HAM, who later issued Letter No.:1475/R-PMT/X/2017 regarding the Recommendations on the layoffs of PT Freeport Indonesia, addressed to the President of Indonesia on October 23, 2017.
In 2018 the union again complained to the commission and Komnas HAM issued Letter No.: 178/TUN/XI/2018 on the follow-up actions related to layoffs and BPJS Service Revocation, which was again addressed to the President on November 2, 2018. However, the president did not do anything about it.
In 2018, the Indonesian government through negotiations with PT Freeport McMorand actually produced four points of agreement, namely Freeport to divest 51 percent of the company’s ownership stake for the Indonesian government – of which 10 percent is owned by the Papua Regional Government and Mimika Regency; Second, Freeport must build a smelter in Indonesia within 5 years; Third, the state revenues (central and regional taxes and non-taxes state revenues) must be higher than the contract of the work period and provide investment certainty during the company’s operation; Fourth, the extension of Freeport’s operating period for 2×10 years until 2041 is obtained through the issuance of a special mining permit (IUPK).
According to Gobay, the government’s lack of responsiveness to the Komnas HAM’s recommendation gave the impression that Freeport was not guilty. In fact, Gobay said, the implementation of the furlough policy by Freeport had violated the rights of Freeport workers, robbed them of welfare and education for their children, and even took the lives of 100 workers who fell ill and could not pay treatments at the hospital due to economic problems caused by the layoffs.
Gobay further questioned Jokowi’s commitment to protecting labor rights in accordance with Article 28 paragraph 4 of the 1945 Constitution in conjunction with Article 8 of Human Rights Law No. 39 /1999.
Anton Awom, a former Freeport worker who went on strike and was arbitrarily laid off, said that the government should accommodate the rights of laid-off workers. “We are just victims of policies from the management of PT Freeport Indonesia,” said Awom. He considered the Indonesian government and PT Freeport Indonesia had violated human rights. (*)
To help combat this oppression, AJI’s Papua chapter launched Papua legal aid in December 2021, noting, “The number of cases of violence against journalists in Papua has made the results of the Press Independence Index assessment by the Press Council for the last 4 years place Papua as the region with the worst press freedom conditions in Indonesia.” The group aims to provide legal assistance to journalists in Papua who are victims of violence and intimidation.