1) Papuan students call on Jokowi to withdraw TNI and Polri troops from Puncak
Jubi Papua – July 10, 2024
Pes Yanengga, Jayapura – Papuan students have called on President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to immediately withdraw TNI (Indonesian military) and Polri (Indonesian police) troops from Puncak regency, Central Papua Province. According to the students, the presence of non-organic troops has triggered an increase in violence against civilians.
Puncak High School and University Student Community (KMPP) General Secretary Urnius Matuwan stated that allegations of discrimination, intimidation and other kinds of violence have been increasingly massive since the placement of TNI and Polri troop in Puncak. Therefore, they reject their placement in the district.
"We urge President Joko Widodo to immediately withdraw Indonesian military forces that control civilian areas in Sinak, Oneri and Agandugume. The presence of these troops continues to increase the violence against communities", said Matuwan when reading out a statement during a press conference at the Sinak student dormitory in Jayapura City on Wednesday July 10.
Based on Jayapura KMPP records, the escalation of violence in Puncak often targets women and children. One such case was the shooting of Makilon Tabuni, who was only 12 years old, in February 2022. In addition to this, there was the murder and mutilation of Tarina Murib in March 2023.
"On May 6, 2023, there was also the shooting of Panius Tabuni, a school principal in Sinak, along with two students. On February 3, 2024, there was the torture of Warinus Murib and two of his friends", said Matuwan.
Matuwan continued saying the increase in the cases of violence has also resulted in the flow of internally displaced people in the past month. Dozens of residents from Sinak, Yugumuak, Mageabume Oneri and Agandugume have fled to Wamena in Jayawijaya.
Matuwan also regretted the attitude of the district government and the Puncak regency Regional House of Representatives (DPRK) who seem not to care about the fate of residents who are increasingly hemmed by the placement of TNI and Polri troops.
"So far the DPRK has not paid serious attention to the conditions of the people who are traumatised by the presence of the Indonesian military. It is as if acting Regent Darwin Tobing is also closing his eyes to the presence of TNI troops in Puncak", said Matuwan.
In their statement, the Jayapura KMPP also rejected the construction of a logistics warehouses in Agandugume. According to Matuwan, this opposition is in line with the attitude of residents, the church and local community leaders.
"The TNI and the Puncak regency government forced through the construction of [the logistics warehouse]. Stop it [construction] right now", said Matuwan.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was " Masahisa Serukan Penarikan Pasukan Militer Dari Puncak".]
Source: https://jubi.id/polhukam/2024/mahasiswa-serukan-penarikan-pasukan-militer-dari-puncak/
Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.
The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.
As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.
One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.
The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:
“WE PRIDE OURSELVES ON A GOVERNMENT THAT TRIES TO LISTEN, AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN TRY AND CHART A WAY FORWARD IN TERMS OF MEDIA FREEDOM AND JOURNALISM IN THE PACIFIC, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FIJI.
“THEY SAY THAT JOURNALISM IS THE OXYGEN OF DEMOCRACY, AND THAT COULD BE NO TRUER THAN IN THE CASE OF FIJI.”
Happy over media law repeal
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”
But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.
He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”
Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:
“HOW IS THE MEDIA BEING DEVELOPED AND USED AS A TOOL TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE OUR PACIFIC IDENTITY?”
Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.
In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.
‘Thursdays in Black’
While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.
But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.
Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.
Fiji is the only Pacific country to seek an intervention in support of Tel Aviv in South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in a war believed to have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians — including 17,000 children — so far, although an article in The Lancet medical journal argues that the real death toll is more like 138,000 people – equivalent to almost a fifth of Fiji’s population.
The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.
The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allieMedia silence noticed
Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the extraordinary silence.
Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”s have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.
“The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.
Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.
She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.
In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.
He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.
PJR editorial challenge
Dr Robie cited the editorial in the just-published Pacific Journalism Review which had laid down a media challenge over Gaza. He wrote:
“GAZA HAS BECOME NOT JUST A METAPHOR FOR A TERRIBLE STATE OF DYSTOPIA IN PARTS OF THE WORLD, IT HAS ALSO BECOME AN EXISTENTIAL TEST FOR JOURNALISTS – DO WE STAND UP FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE AND THE RIGHT OF PEOPLE TO SURVIVE UNDER THE THREAT OF ETHNIC CLEANSING AND AGAINST GENOCIDE, OR DO WE DO NOTHING AND REMAIN SILENT IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE BEING CARRIED OUT WITH IMPUNITY IN FRONT OF OUR VERY EYES?
“THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE SURELY . . .
“AND IT IS ABOUT SAVING JOURNALISM, OUR CREDIBILITY, AND OUR HUMANITY AS JOURNALISTS.”
At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.
Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.
Little or no action
According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.
The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, experienced Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.
“As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.
She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.
These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.
“They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.
And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”
Technology harassment
Berell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.
The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.
Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.
In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.
The community service was organized by officers of the TNI’s Raider Infantry Battalion 323/Buaya Putih Kostrad task force, operating under the command of the Habema Operational Command, stationed at the Koper Post in the village.
“The initiative of the 323 Task Force to organize the Smart Papua program at Koper Post reflects TNI’s commitment to providing basic needs, primarily education service for school-age children, to accelerate the development in Papua,” TNI's Habema operational commander, Brigadier General Lucky Avianto, said in a press statement issued on Sunday.
Koper Post commander, First Lieutenant Anggun, personally invited primary school children in Kago village to take part in the activity organized by his unit on Saturday (July 13).
He noted the local children’s enthusiasm to flock to the activity, which he felt thankful for.
Apart from teaching school lessons, the TNI officers also taught children about respecting parents and their peers, as well as reminding them about the importance of ethics in a community.
Meanwhile, a local student, Lukas Tinal said he is happy to attend the learning activity by the TNI. “Thank you, 'Uncle Soldier'. We enjoyed studying at the Kostrad 323 post. God bless you,” he remarked.
TNI's humane approach in Papua is consistent with Presidential Instruction No. 9 of 2020 on the Acceleration of Welfare Development in Papua, which mandates the military to engage with local figures and strategic groups to promote regional development.
It also aligns with the soft power strategy devised by TNI commander General Agus Subiyanto to address Papua issues.
Habema Operational Command, a joint military-police task force, was set up earlier this year to optimize joint security operations in Papua to prevent local conflicts and neutralize the threat posed by armed Papuan groups, especially the Free Papua Movement (OPM).
Related news: In Papua, TNI pursuing security with a humane face
Reporter: Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Bayu Prasetyo
Jayapura – Zakarias Talaty, the sole judge at the Jayapura District Court, has rejected a pretrial motion on behalf of senior Papuan journalist Victor Mambor against an Order to Stop Investigation (SP3) issued by the North Jayapura Sectoral Police (Polsek) on the grounds that the SP3 was legitimate due to the lack of witnesses who saw the bomb attack on Mambor's home in March 2023.
Papua Human Rights Lawyers Association (PAHAM Papua) Director Gustaf R. Kawer said that the Papua Regional Police should take the Molotov bomb terror attack seriously by involving the Detachment 88 counter-terrorism unit.
"Not 'trivialising' it by allowing the investigators at the Polsek level to handle such a serious case, because the quality of investigators and the minimal equipment has an impacted on the conclusion that there was a lack of witnesses who saw the incident", Kawer said as quoted in a press release received by Jubi on Tuesday July 9.
Kawer said that the bomb attack against Victor Mambor is a serious matter, because it is categorised as a special criminal offense regulated under the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Law on Firearms and Ammunition Owners.
"The police must take it seriously, because it involves the safety of people and the general public", he said.
The lack of seriousness by the police in handling the case through to the issuance of the SP3, he continued, was repeated by Judge Talapatty in rejecting the pretrial motion without considering the documentary evidence and witnesses that were presented by the plaintiff.
Under the criminal law process, the party authorised to conduct investigations and criminal investigations, to find evidence in a crime is the police, who are given a mandate under the Police Law and the Criminal Procedural Code (KUHAP), not the victim or person who reports a crime, the victim's family or third parties such as non-government organisations (NGOs).
"It's very strange if the burden of proof is placed on the victim or reporter [of the crime]", said Kawer.
According to Kawer, the pretrial ruling will clearly set a bad precedent for solving cases of terror against journalists, never mind with a Molotov bomb attack which had a serious impact on the victim and the general public.
The attack was carried out in the city of Jayapura, an area which in terms of uncovering the case should be very easy to do if the police work "supernaturally".
"This case is certainly a mystery for senior journalists Victor Mambor who is the victim and the general public, how are these cases going to be uncovered if the police and judges treat it as 'trivial'? The general public and press people, of course need police and judges 'who work supernaturally' so that in the future terror bombs like this can be uncovered", he said.
Related
- Papua journalist Victor Mambor suspects bombing related to critical reporting. CNN Indonesia – January 24, 2023
- Papua journalist Victor Mambor says yesterday's bombing not first terror attack. CNN Indonesia – January 24, 2023
- Bombing of Papua journalist Victor Mambor's home an attack on press freedom: AJI. Benar News – January 23, 2023
[Translated by James Balowski. Abridged slightly due to repetition. The original title of the article was "Praperadilan SP3 Ditolak, PAHAM Papua: Ini Perkara Serius".]
Source: https://jubi.id/rilis-pers/2024/praperadilan-sp3-ditolak-paham-papua-ini-perkara-serius/
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the regional government continue to encourage the acceleration of equitable access to finance in various regions, including in eastern Indonesia such as Southwest Papua, to help improve the community welfare there.
"Efforts to expand financial access need to continue in all regions," Head of the OJK Literacy, Financial Inclusion, and Communications Department Aman Santosa stated in Jakarta on Saturday, July 13, 2024.
"(This is) so that economic improvement can be achieved through concrete steps together in bringing all levels of society closer to financial products and services," he affirmed.
OJK's support for accelerating financial access in the region was carried out through the formation and inauguration of the Southwest Papua Regional Financial Access Acceleration Team (TPAKD) that was followed by a TPAKD Coordination Meeting throughout the Papua region in Sorong on Thursday, July 11.
The coordination meeting is expected to identify obstacles and challenges to TPAKD tasks and provide financial access in the Papua region so that effective and efficient policy recommendations can be formulated to improve the economy and community welfare.
Santosa stressed that the TPAKD plays an important role in providing flexible and affordable financial access.
Moreover, according to him, increasing financial literacy and consumer protection in the regions is also an intrinsic part of TPAKD's duties and functions.
The inauguration of the TPAKD for Southwest Papua Province brings their number across Indonesia to 523.
The TPAKD is expected to be a catalyst for other regions to establish and inaugurate more such teams.
TPAKD is a coordination forum between agencies and related stakeholders to expedite financial access in the regions to encourage regional economic growth and create a more prosperous society.
ANTARA
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