The Israeli military prosecution has controversially cancelled the indictment of five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in southern Israel, reports Anadolu Ajansi.

“In light of significant developments that have occurred since the indictment was filed in the Yemen Field case, the military prosecution has decided today to cancel the indictment,” the Israeli army said in a statement yesterday.

The torture case dates back to July 2025, when Israeli soldiers tortured and sexually assaulted a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility, causing serious injuries and a tear in the rectum.

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• Other Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners reports

Earlier, Israeli news media outlets, including the public broadcaster KAN, claimed that Israel released the tortured detainee on October 13, 2025, to the Gaza Strip as part of a group of prisoners released under the exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Sde Teiman, which literally means “Yemen Field” in Arabic, is an Israeli military base in the Negev Desert in southern Israel.

Interrogators there have become notorious for physical and sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees from Gaza to the extent that it has been dubbed “Israel’s Guantanamo” in reference to the infamous US detention facility in Iraq.

The Sde Teiman prison has witnessed widespread violations against Palestinian detainees, including severe beatings, prolonged restraint, and medical neglect, which have killed people, according to Palestinian and Israeli media and human rights reports.

New Zealand protesters in Tamaki Makaurau today heralded a global demand for the freedom of thousands of Palestinians who have been unlawfully imprisoned by Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestine.

Today is the Red Ribbon Campaign’s global day of solidarity for Palestinian hostages or political prisoners.

It is the culmination of the Red Ribbon campaign that has been running globally for several weeks.

• READ MORE: Red Ribbon Day 31 January 2026
• Israel kills 29, including several children, in new Gaza ceasefire breach
• Other Gaza reports

At the time of the so-called Gaza “ceasefire” declared on October 10, Israel was reported to be holding a record 11,100 Palestinians hostage, mostly innocent and without charge or due process.

In exchange for the final 20 Israeli hostages still alive held by Hamas and other resistance groups at the time of the ceasefire, almost 2000 Palestinian prisoners were freed by Israel.

This leaves more than 9100 prisoners — 400 of them children and 3544 of them held under “administrative detention” — yet to be freed.

Speaking at the solidarity rally in Te Komititanga Square today, Palestinian academic and theatre practitioner Associate Professor Rand Hazou highlighted how Israel was the only country in the world to detain children under military law and military courts.

Denied access to parents, lawyers
“According to UNICEF, Palestinian child detainees are denied access to their parents and lawyers. They are often arrested in the middle of the night, blindfolded and beaten, threatened with torture and denied food and sleep,” he said.

“Palestinian detainees, including children, are forcibly transferred outside the occupied the Palestinian territory in contravention of Article 4 of the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of children and civilian persons at the time of war.”

His comments were greeted with cries of “shame” by the crowd.

He related as an example the case of US teenager Mohammed Ibrahim who was released recently from Israeli prison after nine months.

“The teenager from Florida was 15 years old last February when he was arrested and taken from his family home in the town of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, near Ramallah,” Dr Hazou said.

“Mohammed was arrested over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers, which he denied. His father, Zaher Ibrahim and other relatives told Al Jazeera earlier this year that Mohammed was blindfolded and beaten during February’s raid on his family home.

“Israeli authorities did not allow him to contact his family while in prison, nor did he have any visitation rights.”

1000 military orders
Since 1967, Dr Hazou said, Israel had issued more than 1000 military orders that criminalise a range of activities in Palestinians’ daily lives — including waving political symbols like flags, being in certain areas without permits, and any kind of speech that could fit into a loosely defined charge of “incitement”.

“Israel can arrest you for waving a flag. Israel can arrest you for exercising your rights to freedom of movement,” he said.

Dr Hazou also criticised the practice of mainstream media in referring to the Israeli prisoners being held by the Gaza resistance fighters as “hostages” while the Palestinians were described as “prisoners”.

This was a “quite deliberate” policy by the media to imply innocence of the Israeli hostages, while suggesting guilt by the Palestinian detainees — “who are also actually hostages”.

Former trade union advocate Mike Treen condemned the inhumane practice of administrative detention and blamed it on the British colonial administration for introducing it during the Palestine mandate prior to 1948.

Administrative detention means that those detainees have not been charged with an offence. Some of them have been detained for between one and two years, with the period of time extended repeatedly — and indefinitely — so that prisoners and their families never know when they will be freed.

Persecution of Palestinians
Amnesty International has found that Israel systematically uses administrative detention as a tool to persecute Palestinians.

Treen also condemned the global “billionaire classes” for their exploitation.

“Billionaires monopolise everything they can so that they can extort rents out of us at any price.

“The rich north countries are also the old imperialist countries and we are reverting back from the neocolonial pretence that it doesn’t exist to more open forms of it today.”

Speaking in her personal capacity, Red Ribbon campaigner Audrey van Ryn cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“When people are found guilty of a crime, what usually happens is that they go to court for a trial and a judge will decide how they should be punished,” she said.

Prisoner rights
However, people who were who sent to prison for a crime had rights under the Universal Declaration, including:

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.

Article 11 (1): Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

“Some states abuse these rights of prisoners,” van Ryn said.

“Some states detain people who have not even been charged with an offence. One of these states is Israel.”

Illegal colonisation
According to a Spheres of Influence article about under reported crimes against humanity, “For 77 years, indigenous Palestinians have lived under Israel’s illegal colonisation of their own land, a regime that controls every aspect of their lives.

“One of the occupation’s most brutal tools of control is the mass abduction of Palestinians, where men, women, and children are taken hostage and imprisoned to shatter communities and crush their struggle for freedom.

“Human rights organisations describe these prisons as a ‘grave for the living’.

The first thing some of the recently released Palestinians said was a desperate plea:

“Save what remains of the hostages. If you die once a day, we die a thousand times.”

The article also alleged that since 1948, Israeli occupation forces (IDF) had arrested more than 1 million Palestinians.

“Almost every Palestinian family has lived through the trauma of a loved one kidnapped, interrogated, and disappeared into prison.”

Among high profile cases of injustice against Palestinians are:

• Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader regarded as “Palestine’s Mandela”, who was imprisoned by Israel in 2004 for life on trumped up charges.
• Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is a Palestinian paediiatrician who was born in Jabalia Refugee Camp and became director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. His hospital was bombed in December 2024 and he was seized as a prisoner. He has been held without charge by Israel in Ofer Prison since then, assaulted and tortured.

Red Cross plea to visit jails
Calls have been made by the UN and human rights experts for the release of women, children, and elected representatives, detained for activities resisting the occupation.

Resolutions have also called for allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisons.

Earlier today, about 3000 people took part in a rally and march in central Auckland with the theme Toitū te Aroha, a celebration of cultural diversity and immigration.

This was a counter protest to one staged by the Destiny Church with 700 people in Victoria Park condemning immigration, but a police cordon prevented the protesters led by self-styled pastor Brian Tamaki marching on to Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Israel and the West pretend they want a real peace in Israel-Palestine yet the Israelis have beaten unconscious the man most likely to help realise a sustainable end to the conflict: Marwan Barghouti.

The ethnocentrism of Western culture is such that 20 Israeli hostages received vastly more coverage than thousands of Palestinian hostages, nearly 2000 of whom were released as part of the recent exchange.

These prisoners, physically emaciated, most emotionally shattered, many children, most having never been charged, some held for decades, emerged from the Dantesque Inferno of the Israeli prison system. Most had some kind of disease, commonly scabies, due to the infested and infected conditions of the gulag.

• READ MORE: Eugene Doyle: Saving Palestine’s Marwan Barghouti is our duty
• ‘We fear for my father’s life’: Marwan Barghouti’s son to Al Jazeera

Five Palestinian detainees released and exiled to Egypt brought with them terrible news: the great Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti — the person most likely to lead a free Palestine — had recently been beaten unconscious by his captors.

According to the Times of Israel, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir who oversees the Israeli Prison System says he is “proud that Barghouti’s conditions have changed drastically”.

What Nelson Mandela would say about the beating of Marwan
Marwan Barghouti — Palestine’s most loved and revered leader, a living symbol of the resistance — was beaten unconscious by 8 Israeli guards, according to the testimony of fellow prisoners on arrival in Cairo. The attack left the 66-year-old with broken ribs and head injuries.

When called on to demand his protection, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other Western leaders yawned and looked the other way. That response defined the depths that the Western world has reached in its permissiveness of violence towards Palestinian prisoners.

Marwan Barghouti is commonly referred to as the Palestinian Mandela, a man who has the attributes to not only unite the many Palestinian factions but also negotiate a lasting peace, if given the opportunity.

Mandela couldn’t have been “Mandela” without him surviving and being released — which is a tribute to the ANC and other fighters for freedom, as well as to the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns that finally convinced the regime to negotiate.

The same was true of the Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland which saw the release of prisoners that one side considered terrorists. The British also came to accept that negotiation with leaders like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of the IRA was essential precisely because they had the street credibility to deliver peace.

It is worth pointing out that Mandela said he was not personally beaten during his 27 years of captivity by the racist South African apartheid regime.

Barghouti, who has spent the last 23 years in prisons has had at least four beatings by the Israelis in the past three years alone. The Israelis have shown nothing but contempt for the Geneva Conventions, the laws of war, Red Cross requests, or any benchmark of human decency.

They are our “friends and allies” with whom we share values.

‘He has been in a struggle for 50 years’.           Video: TRT News

Rules on prisoner treatment
After leaving Robben Island to eventually become South Africa’s first black President, the convicted terrorist and revolutionary Prisoner 46664 helped author the Nelson Mandela Rules on prisoner treatment, adopted by the United Nations in 2015. He had seen the mistreatment of many of his comrades by racist white South Africa, a close ally of most of our governments.

The scale of what is being done by Israel in its mass torture centres would be beyond anything Mandela could have imagined. Unlike morally repellent leaders like New Zealand’s Luxon, UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron or Germany’s Merz, he would never have failed to act.

A central tenet of the Mandela Rules is that people behind bars are not beyond human rights. Countries — and, yes, that includes Israel — must adhere to minimum standards such as, “No prisoner shall be subjected to, and all prisoners shall be protected from, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, for which no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification.”

Recently released Palestinians, most in shocking physical condition, talked of having to drink toilet water, beatings, being denied medical treatment, constant humiliations, including sexual violence, committed by the Israelis.

This kind of behaviour has long been documented by international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — and largely ignored by the mainstream media.

The Israelis, never forget, are our close friends, with whom we share “values”.

I have written a number of articles about Marwan and, to avoid repetition, I recommend those unfamiliar with his astonishing story to read them. My last article, Saving Marwan Barghouti is our duty, in August, was part of a global push to prevent Marwan facing further mistreatment. I was shocked at the time to see the video that Israeli Minister Ben-Gvir posted to show the power he personally had over Marwan whose physical condition had obviously deteriorated to a terrible extent. Now he has been beaten, for the fourth time.

“It is a clear declaration that they are threatening my father’s life,” his son Arab Barghouti said this week.

Prisons are ‘Israeli sadism in a nutshell’
One person who watched the release of the prisoners last week was veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass, correspondent on the Occupied Palestinian Territories for Israel’s leading newspaper Haaretz.

“It was a kind of parade of skeletons,” Hass said. “These last two years, it’s like the Israeli prisons have become Israeli sadism in a nutshell,” she told Democracy Now!.

“The way that prisoners were treated during these two years is unprecedented in Israel. They didn’t only come out emaciated; they came out ill, sick. Some of them have lost limbs. It’s indescribable.”

Hass’s own parents were Holocaust survivors, her mother surviving nine months in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Now, along with all of us, she is witness to genocide.

She makes the fine observation that people aren’t born cruel; they become so. I would add: we in the West helped the Israelis become so depraved by ignoring their abuses for so long. Former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer is a case in point.

In the UK Parliament on October 14, Green MP Ellie Chowns asked Starmer:

“Can I ask the Prime Minister what recent representation his government has made in the last few days to secure the immediate release of Mr Barghouti, given his widespread popularity as a unifying voice for Palestinian rights, dignity and freedom, and therefore his potential crucial role in securing a meaningful and lasting peace in the region?”

Starmer is an avatar for the West: complicit in genocide and disturbingly detached from the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Starmer, who has less human decency in his entire being than Nelson Mandela had in one nostril hair, refused to even mention Barghouti by name. His lawyerly reply:

“Thank you for raising the individual case. We offer to provide such further information as we can, as soon as we can, in relation to that particular case.”

Western leaders, including in my own country, have refused to even reply to requests that petitions/insistences be made to the Israelis to save the great Palestinian leader. They have shown more empathy for the remains of deceased Israeli hostages crushed under the rubble of buildings bombed by the Israelis, hypocritically blaming Hamas for not releasing the remains fast enough!

Such is the moral calibre of our leaders.

None of them, it should be pointed out, had anything to say when footage appeared of Israeli soldiers committing gang rape at Sde Temein Prison last year. Not only were the men not punished but by week’s end they had been blessed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s spiritual mentor Rabbi Meir Mazuz who assured one of the rapists that he had done “no wrong” and “In another country they would have given him an award”.

Never forget, the Israelis are our close friends and allies with whom, our leaders tell us, we share values.

‘Israel doesn’t want peace – they want ethnic cleansing’
Such is Marwan Barghouti’s standing that he is respected by all Palestinian factions and acknowledged as a unifying figure, a peacemaker and someone who should be leading Palestine not getting his head punched by Israeli thugs.

“That’s why they see him as a danger,” says his son, Arab Barghouti. “Because he wants to bring stability, he wants to end the cycle of violence.

“He wants a unifying Palestinian vision that is accepted by everyone, and the international community as well. But they’re [Israelis] not interested in any political settlement; they’re only interested in ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people.”

True words, those — and they demolish the fake narrative peddled by Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders that there was “no partner for peace” on the Palestinian side.

The Israelis have killed so many Palestinian negotiators, so many Palestinians leaders that the opposite is now clear: the Israelis and the West are the true enemies of peace.

I’ll give the last word to another Palestinian. I dedicate it to Keir Starmer, Christopher Luxon, Anthony Albanese and all those other leaders who stand deaf, dumb and blind to Marwan Barghouti and the thousands of Palestinian souls still suffering in Israeli captivity:

“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

– Matthew 25, King James Bible

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region, and he contributes to Asia Pacific Report. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

Seeing video evidence this week of the physical and psychological mistreatment of the great Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti sickened me. I have written a number of articles about Marwan.

Researching and writing builds knowledge and empathy and I am one of those who believes, given the opportunity, he really could be the Palestinian Mandela. How should you and I respond to this criminality by the Israeli state?

A video clip posted by the Israeli “Security” Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on August 15 showed the bully taunting and intimidating a frail Marwan Barghouti. It sparked international condemnation.

• READ MORE:  Recognise Palestine? Then free Marwan Barghouti
• Other Marwan Barghouti articles

His own wife did not recognise him

Marwan’s wife and human rights activist Fadwa Barghouti, was shocked to see the heavy toll the Israelis had inflicted on a man legendary for his indomitable spirit.

“I didn’t recognise you or your features, and maybe part of me doesn’t want to admit everything your face and body express about what you and the prisoners have endured,” she wrote in a public message to her husband.

“They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you even after 23 years in prison and in the solitary cell you’ve been living in for two years.”

She added: “I know that the only thing that hurts you is the inability to protect Palestinian children.”

NEW: Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir filmed threatening Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent Palestinian prisoner, during a prison visit.
“Whoever murders our children… we will obliterate them.”

First time Barghouti seen publicly in years — frail, gaunt, unrecognisable.… pic.twitter.com/CbkOO25pak

— Khaled Shalaby (@KShalabyNews) August 14, 2025

International protocols on prisoner treatment
The mistreatment of prisoners like Marwan Barghouti is a crime under international law; the relevant international protocols include: Geneva Convention IV (1949) — Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; Common Article 3 (minimum protections including bans on torture, cruel treatment, and “outrages upon personal dignity”); UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules).

These establish prohibitions against torture, degrading treatment, and requirements for humane conditions of detention. Look at Marwan Barghouti and weep that we support Israel, a state that has defecated on the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention and every memorial to the victims of the Shoah.

The Israelis, “our allies”, have committed rape-murders of prisoners (documented in their own posted videos), killed countless Palestinian leaders and hold thousands of hostages in gruesome captivity — even as they commit ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and forced starvation in Gaza.

Barghouti, who would win any free and fair elections in Palestine in a landslide, has since 2023, according to human rights organisations, been repeatedly assaulted and subjected to Abu Ghraib-style treatment, had joints dislocated and other forms of torture while our governments turn a blind eye and work day and night to provide the Israelis with the political cover needed to pursue the Greater Israel project.

Terrible news from Yousef Aljamal
I also received terrible news this week that my friend Yousef Aljamal had suffered yet another horror at the hands of the Israelis: his sister Somaiya, 35; her husband Anas, 35; and their daughters Hoor, 13, and Sham, 9, had been killed in an Israeli missile attack earlier this month as they slept.

A third daughter, Noor, 14, was injured and is now the family’s sole survivor.

I interviewed Yousef in my home in Wellington a few weeks ago; it was a privilege and an education to spend time with the distinguished Palestinian writer. As I said in the subsequent article, the encounter made visceral for me that word genocide.

Sitting opposite me in my study in my serene Wellington coastal suburb, Yousef told me of the 40 members of his family who had been murdered by the Israelis. Now four more members of his family have been taken.

These are people like us, with feelings like us. They are not the Hated Others so long painted by our mainstream media as unworthy of naming, unworthy of human dignity.

The collective West is responsible under law
The Israelis have turned Gaza into a hellscape that would shock Dante Alighieri. Over two million people are being tortured in the cruellest way every day and our governments refuse to intervene in powerful and meaningful ways.

According to whistleblower US Green Beret Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Anthony Aguilar, the Israelis and the American GHF contractors use pepper spray and gunfire instead of signs to direct the human traffic. Waves of suffering humanity are tossed hither and thither on a sea of diabolical inhumanity. Nearly 2000 starving innocents have been gunned down while seeking food.

To be blunt: If the Israelis don’t want to be likened to the Nazis, they should stop acting like Nazis.

The responsibility to prevent and punish
This evil is supported to astonishing lengths by the morally empty governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and, of course, the great arsenals of genocide the US, UK and Germany. The leaders of the powerful Western countries are fully aware of what is being done and allow it to continue — and therefore represent the moral nadir of our species.

Leaders like Anthony Albanese, Christopher Luxon and Keir Starmer make corporeal the term Banality of Evil. They calculate, they mumble and equivocate, then they comply with the Americans. “Genocide enabler” should be their sole epitaph.

Our countries are signatories to the Genocide Convention, the first Article of which states: “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”

Prevent and punish. Legal scholars and the ICJ’s opinions affirm that states providing military, financial, or political support with knowledge of likely genocidal acts risk being found complicit.

Our governments have failed to reach the lowest bar of human decency or fulfil this fundamental duty. It is up to us to act. If it was right to oppose Nazism in the Second World War it is most certainly a moral imperative to oppose the brand of Nazism the Jewish State of Israel has created today. We must find the courage to oppose them.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2007 in the ICJ Bosnia Genocide case that Serbia was guilty of breaching its duty to prevent the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. Countries like the UK, Germany, New Zealand and Australia would likely, if international law was applied evenly, be found similarly culpable for failing to prevent genocide by Israel and the US.

This is the legal concept of erga omnes partes, the collective responsibility that signatory states share.

On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel faces credible allegations of genocide in Gaza and imposed urgent, legally binding measures, including an obligation to allow humanitarian access and prevent genocidal acts. All our states are fully aware Israel has defied this ruling.

War crimes tribunals on the Palestine Genocide will be essential to restore international law. War criminals whether in Tel Aviv, London, Canberra or Wellington must one day face justice.

In a recent article I described Stéphane Hessel, a leading member of the French Resistance, who survived time in Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald. After the war he was one of the co-authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a pillar of international law to this day. The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans.

In later years Hessel (d. 2013), who was Jewish, saw the treatment of the Palestinians as an affront to this and repeatedly called Israel out for crimes against humanity.

Hessel argued people needed to be outraged just as he and his fellow fighters had been during the war. In 2010, he said: “Today, my strongest feeling of indignation is over Palestine, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The starting point of my outrage was the appeal launched by courageous Israelis to the Diaspora: you, our older siblings, come and see where our leaders are taking this country and how they are forgetting the fundamental human values of Judaism.”

Imagine what action he would call for today.

Aaron Bushnell’s challenge to us
So, back to the core challenge I posed at the beginning. Are we willing to do what it takes to save Marwan Barghouti, to save our brothers and sisters in Palestine?

As Aaron Bushnell, the active duty US serviceman said the day he self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington last year to protest the genocide against the Palestinian people:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or Apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

The world’s most important hostage — must be released. The powerful Western countries have signalled that in the face of the genocide they may recognise the state of Palestine.

States need leaders. That’s why Marwan Barghouti – often dubbed the Palestinian Mandela — must be freed.

A former head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Ephraim Halevy, agrees with calls by leaders from across the Middle East for Barghouti’s release: “Barghouti is popular with his people, he has a clear position, he speaks Hebrew well and can negotiate; all of which qualifies him to lead a new path.

• READ MORE: Israel steps up ground and air attacks as 8 more die of starvation in Gaza
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“We have to be creative in dealing with the future in the West Bank as well and the rest of the territories, as there are millions of Palestinians, and transferring two million Palestinians from Gaza is unrealistic,” Halevy told Middle East Monitor.

States need leaders
The UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a baker’s dozen of Western-aligned states have signalled they may finally join humanity and recognise the right of Palestine to exist as a state.

They are doing so at a moment when the physical existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine is in peril due to the US-Israeli genocide.

If this is not simply another hollow, performative gesture, real things must happen: first and foremost the lifting of the siege and the ending of the man-made famine.

Simultaneously, Palestine needs a credible leadership to negotiate its future. Why call for recognition of a state when hundreds of the top leadership of that future state are held in cruel captivity?

These hostages seldom receive any attention — in contrast to the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and other groups.

Who decides who represents Palestine?
In typical Western fashion the announcement of potentially recognising the Palestinian state comes with a swag of conditions — foremost that Hamas, the most popular movement in Palestine, the winner of the last free and fair elections in both the West Bank and Gaza, must not be part of any government.

OK, so, if the Palestinians bow to that condition, who will be the leaders of this state? Who has the standing with all the factions of the Palestinian polity?

Marwan Barghouti could be such a man. The geriatric and thoroughly discredited Mahmoud Abbas, unelected leader of the Palestinian Authority, is largely seen as a tool of the US and Israel.

More than 90 percent of Palestinians want him gone. In contrast, Barghouti is a revered figure, respected by all Palestinian organisations. He consistently polls as the most popular leader.

The Israelis have murdered many of the Palestinian leaders (along with targeted assassinations of hundreds of writers, professors, lawyers, doctors and other people crucial to state-building). They even killed the lead negotiator in the hostage release process.

It is vital that the West ensures Barghouti is protected from further mistreatment. It is also worth dismissing the lie that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with; Barghouti has the will and the attributes.

The blockage is actually Western complicity in ethnic cleansing, land stealing and the overall Greater Israel Project.

Barghouti: the most important political prisoner
During the past 23 years in Israeli prisons Barghouti has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian — a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation.

As I wrote in 2024:

“Barghouti, the terrorist, rotting in jail. Barghouti, the indomitable leader who has not given up on peace. Barghouti, loved by ordinary people as ‘a man of the street’. Barghouti, supporter of the Oslo Accords. Barghouti, the 15 year-old youth leader standing beside Yasser Arafat.

“Barghouti, once a member of parliament and Fatah secretary-general. Barghouti, leader of Tanzim, a PLO military wing, choosing militancy after the betrayal of the Oslo promise by the Americans and Israelis became fully clear.

“Barghouti, a leader of the intifada that restored hope to a broken people. Barghouti, the scholar and thinker. Barghouti, the political strategist and unifier.”

Marwan is the most famous Palestinian prisoner but it should never be forgotten that the entire Palestinian people have been held in bondage for generations.

The West should force the Israelis to release Barghouti — and thousands of other hostages held by Israel. To do so publicly and successfully would be a powerful statement of future intentions.

The release of one man cannot, however, change the world: it will take a genuine course correction by the West to use their collective power to force the Israelis to abandon the endless killings, starvation, land thieving and other lawlessness in the Palestinian lands.

The West must stop posturing and start acting
If the Western states fail to quickly move to change facts on the ground, it will suggest that the whole exercise was only intended to achieve political cover for the pro-genocidal forces of the US and the other enablers like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Netanyahu is driving both the Palestinians and Israel to destruction.

Ironically, the Palestinian Marwan Barghouti could save Israel from moral death and, simultaneously, the Palestinians from further physical destruction. He is a leader that the West and the Israelis, if they chose, could negotiate with.

As Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, said a couple of years ago: Barghouti is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”

One final point: negotiating with ‘terrorists’
The West has made it clear they believe Hamas are too monstrous, too terroristic to be involved in a peace process.

But the West is entirely comfortable with the racist, fascist, genocidal leaders of Israel remaining at the helm of their country. There is a reason for this and one the West needs to front up to: racism and contempt for the Palestinians as a people.

Barghouti and hundrds of other leaders have endured torture and worse without our side raising even an eyebrow. The recent skite videos posted by IDF soldiers committing rape-murder inside Sde Temein prison says it all — they rightly assumed their depraved criminality would be sanctioned by the state and silently tolerated by the West.

War crimes are fine and no barrier to leadership if these crimes are committed by regimes that we are deeply committed to. After all, as our leaders repeatedly tell us: we share values with the Israelis.

I’ll give the last word to Marwan Barghouti.

“Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn’t get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty.”

It is time to change that and to stand with humanity. Free Marwan Barghouti!

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

A researcher says the Israeli prison system aims to subjugate the Palestinian people as rallies across the West Bank marked Prisoners’ Day today while yet another prisoner was reported dead.

“When you have the statistics that one in every five Palestinians has been arrested and you understand that 50 percent of our population are children under 18 — that means that roughly one in every two male adults has been arrested, subjugated and criminalised by Israeli authorities,” researcher and former detainee Al-Aboudi told Al Jazeera.

He is the director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, based in Ramallah, occupied West Bank.

• READ MORE: Call for collective global action over ‘horrific’ Israeli crimes against Palestinian prisoners
• Other Palestinian prisoners reports

The goal, said Al-Aboudi, who himself was detained in 2019, is to break Palestinian resilience.

“It’s only in Israeli jails that you will find doctors, professors, academics, physicists — the creme de la creme of Palestinian civil society is being targeted, incarcerated because Israel doesn’t want any kind of Palestinian agency, any Palestinian collective agency, any kind of Palestinian leadership,” he said.

Palestinians mark Prisoners’ Day on April 17 each year, reports Al Jazeera.

Human rights organisations warn that Palestinian detainees are subject to some of the worst conditions in Israeli prisons.

Detainees tell of torture, starvation
They are not allowed visits from family, lawyers or doctors, and former detainees tell of torture, abuse and starvation by Israeli prison authorities.

Musab Hassan Adili, a 20-year-old Palestinian prisoner from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was reported to have died on Wednesday night in Israel’s Soroka Hospital, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Palestine marches for prisoners’ freedom.    Video: Al Jazeera

Adili had been detained in March last year and sentenced to 13 months in Israeli prison. He was supposed to be released in a couple of days, his family said.

His death brings the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli prisons to 64 since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel in 2023.

‘Shameless double standard’
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has condemned what it calls the “clear and shameless double standard” of those demanding the release of Israeli captives in Gaza but staying silent while thousands of Palestinians languish in Israel’s jails, including women and children.

In a statement marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PIJ said the “international community is tarnished by its silence regarding the suffering of tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, which has continued for decades”.

Of the nearly 10,000 Palestinians that support groups say are held in Israeli prisons, 3498 are held without charge or trial under what’s known as “administrative detention”.

PIJ said that 400 children and almost 30 women are among those held, while some 2000 people from Gaza have been arrested by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023, and that the prisoners who have died in Israeli jails suffer from medical negligence and torture.

According to PIJ, the October 7 attacks on Israel were launched “primarily to impose a genuine prisoner exchange deal that would free prisoners from the occupation’s prisons and alleviate the suffering of our people”.

“Their liberation has become an unwavering goal in the battle for dignity and freedom,” it said.

A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti.

During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian — a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Marwan Barghouti profiles
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

As reported last week, Egypt, Qatar and Hamas are all insisting Barghouti, the most popular leader in Palestine, be among the thousands of Palestinian hostages to be freed as part of the ceasefire agreement.

His release or retention in captivity will say volumes about which path the US and Israel wish to take: either more land thieving, more killings, more lawlessness or steps towards ending the occupation and choosing peace over territorial expansion.

Why is Barghouti potentially so important?  Despite long years in Israeli jails, he is a political giant who bestrides the Palestinian cause. He is an intellectual and both a fighter and a peace activist.

He is respected by all factions of the Palestinians. He is by far the most popular figure in Palestine and as such he is almost uniquely positioned to complete the vital task of uniting his people.

Back in July last year the Chinese government pulled off a diplomatic masterstroke by getting 14 factions, including Hamas and Fatah, to successfully come together for reconciliation talks and ink the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity. Now they need a unifying leader to move forward together.

Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas is despised as a US-Israeli tool by most Palestinians, 90 percent of whom, according to polling, want him gone. Hamas has represented the most effective resistance to Israel but the time may have come for them to accept partnership with, even leadership by, someone who can negotiate peace.

How Gaza and the West Bank is governed should be determined by the Palestinian people not by anyone else, especially not by Israeli leaders currently under investigation for genocide or US leaders who should join them in the dock for arming them.

The moment that Hamas releases three women hostages.  Video: Al Jazeera

Hypocritical rejection of Hamas
Barghouti, however, could untie the Gordian knot that has formed around the West’s hypocritical rejection of Hamas on one hand and the Palestinian people’s determination not to be dictated to by their oppressors on the other.

Marwan Barghouti has the moral, political and popular stature to reach out to the Israelis, to see past their crimes and to sit down with them. If only. If only. If only.

The horrible reality is Israel and the US have been led by war criminals who fail to grasp the fact that peace is only possible if they abandon the vilification of the Palestinian people and their leaders; that a better world is only possible if the Palestinians are finally given freedom and dignity.

It will be a relief to everyone to see the remaining few dozen Israelis held by Hamas and other groups released.  They deserve to be home with their families.

It will be a relief that thousands of Palestinian hostages be freed, many of them, according to Israel’s leading human rights organisation B’tselem, victims of torture, sexual violence and medieval conditions.  Hundreds of Palestinian child hostages — all of them traumatised — will be returned to their families.

All these are welcome developments.  Strategically, however, Marwan Barghouti stands apart.

Uniquely suited to lead Palestine
Long considered the “Palestinian Mandela” — not least because of his 22 years of continuous imprisonment — the former Fatah leader, the former military leader, has attributes that make him almost uniquely suited to lead Palestine to freedom — if Israel and the US are prepared to abandon the Greater Israel project and accept peace can only come with justice for all.

That’s a big “If”.

Barghouti, returned to jail in 2002, after being convicted in what is considered by many scholars an illegal and deeply flawed Israeli show trial on five counts of murder.  He denies the charges and does not recognise the court.

He has lived for more than 22 years in conditions far more barbaric than the great South African leader had to endure on Robben Island.  According to Israeli human rights groups, family and international lawyers, Barghouti has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian – a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resistance to the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

Marwan Barghouti is the same age as me — 65 — and it fills me with horror that a man who has spent decades fighting for freedom, and, if possible, peace, has been subjected to the horrors of an Israeli gulag for so long.

I am not sure I would have had the physical or mental strength to endure what he has but — like Mandela — he kept his humanity and has remained an advocate for peace.

We should never forget that seven million Palestinians remain as hostages held in brutal conditions by the US and Israel.  Most are hostages without human rights, political rights, territorial rights.

As Palestinians have pointed out: imprisonment is now part of Palestinian consciousness. But — as Marwan Barghouti has shown with his iron will, his human decency, his determination to continue to be an advocate for peace with Israel — you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.

I’ll give the last word to his son, Arab Barghouti who told Mehdi Hasan on Zeteo this week, “My father used to always tell me that hope is sometimes a privilege, but being ‘hope-less’ is a privilege that we can’t have as Palestinians.”

In the same interview he also said:

“If any Israeli leader really wants an end to this and to have peace for the region, they would see that my father is someone that would bring that and is someone who still believes in the tiny chance left for the two-state solution.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges

Israel, going back decades, has played a duplicitous game.

It signs a deal with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants — in this case the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza — but Israel habitually fails to implement subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace.

It eventually provokes the Palestinians with indiscriminate armed assaults to retaliate, defines a Palestinian response as a provocation and abrogates the ceasefire deal to reignite the slaughter.

• READ MORE: Israeli government agrees on Gaza ceasefire as military pounds enclave
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

If this latest three-phase ceasefire deal is ratified — and there is no certainty that it will be by Israel — it will, I expect, be little more than a presidential inauguration bombing pause. Israel has no intention of halting its merry-go-round of death.

The Israeli Cabinet delayed a vote on the ceasefire proposal while it continues to pound Gaza — but finally agreed to the deal. At least 81 Palestinians have been killed in the first 24 hours after the ceasefire was declared.

The morning after a ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of reneging on part of the deal “in an effort to extort last minute concessions.”

He warned that his cabinet would not meet “until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”

Hamas dismissed Netanyahu’s claims and repeated their commitment to the ceasefire as agreed with the mediators.

The deal includes three phases.

The first phase, lasting 42 days, will see a cessation of hostilities. Hamas will release some Israeli hostages — 33 Israelis who were captured on October 7, 2023, including all of the remaining five women, those aged above 50, and those with illnesses — in exchange for up to 1000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The Israeli army will pull back from the populated areas of the Gaza Strip on the first day of the ceasefire. On the seventh day, displaced Palestinians will be permitted to return to northern Gaza. Israel will allow 600 aid trucks with food and medical supplies to enter Gaza daily.

The second phase, which begins on the 16th day of the ceasefire, will see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Israel will complete its withdrawal from Gaza during the second phase, maintaining a presence in some parts of the Philadelphi corridor, which stretches along the eight-mile border between Gaza and Egypt.

It will surrender its control of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.

The third phase will see negotiations for a permanent end of the war.

But it is Netanyahu’s office that appeared to have already reneged on the agreement. It released a statement rejecting Israeli troop withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor during the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire.

“In practical terms, Israel will remain in the Philadelphi Corridor until further notice,” while claiming the Palestinians are attempting to violate the agreement. Palestinians throughout the numerous ceasefire negotiations have demanded Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.

Egypt has condemned the seizure of its border crossings by Israel.

The deep fissures between Israel and Hamas, even with the Israelis finally accepting the agreement, threaten to implode it.

Hamas is seeking a permanent ceasefire. But Israeli policy is unequivocal about its “right” to re-engage militarily.

There is no consensus about who will govern Gaza. Israel has made it clear the continuance of Hamas in power is unacceptable.

There is no mention of the status of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN agency that Israel has outlawed and that provides the bulk of the humanitarian aid given to the Palestinians, 95 percent of whom have been displaced.

There is no agreement on the reconstruction of Gaza, which lies in rubble. And, of course, there is no route in the agreement to an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

Israeli mendacity and manipulation is pitifully predictable.

Camp David

The Camp David Accords, signed in 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.

But the subsequent phases, which included a promise by Israel to resolve the Palestinian question along with Jordan and Egypt, permit Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never honored.

Oslo
Or take the 1993 Oslo Accords. The agreement, signed in 1993, which saw the PLO recognise Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people; and Oslo II, signed in 1995, which detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state, was stillborn.

It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” was to be delayed until “final’ status talks, by which time Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were to have been completed.

Governing authority was to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority. The West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C.

The Palestinian Authority has limited authority in Areas A and B. Israel controls all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.

The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law– was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat, instantly alienating many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees.

Edward Said called the Oslo agreement “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles” and lambasted Arafat as “the Pétain of the Palestinians”.

The scheduled Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. There was no provision in the interim agreement to end Jewish colonization, only a prohibition of “unilateral steps”.

There were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank at the time of the Oslo agreement. They have increased to at least 700,000. No final treaty was ever concluded.

The journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo …

“a sham, a lie, a trick to entangle Arafat and the PLO into abandonment of all that they had sought and struggled for over a quarter of a century, a method of creating false hope in order to emasculate the aspiration of statehood.”

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo agreement, was assassinated on November 4, 1995, following a rally in support of the agreement, by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jewish law student.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel’s national security minister, was one of many rightwing politicians who issued threats against Rabin. Rabin’s widow, Leah, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters — who distributed leaflets at political rallies depicting Rabin in a Nazi uniform — for her husband’s murder.

Israel has carried out a series of murderous assaults on Gaza ever since, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn”.

These attacks, which leave scores of dead and wounded and further degrade Gaza’s fragile infrastructure, have names such as Operation Rainbow (2004), Operation Days of Penitence (2004), Operation Summer Rains (2006), Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) and Operation Hot Winter (2008).

Israel violated the June 2008 ceasefire agreement with Hamas, brokered by Egypt, by launching a border raid that killed six Hamas members. The raid provoked, as Israel intended, a retaliatory strike by Hamas, which fired crude rockets and mortar shells into Israel.

The Hamas barrage provided the pretext for a massive Israeli attack. Israel, as it always does, justified its military strike on the “right to defend itself”.

Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), which saw Israel carry out a ground and aerial assault over 22 days, with the Israeli air force dropping over 1000 tons of explosives on Gaza, killed 1,385 — according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem — of whom at least 762 were civilians, including 300 children.

Four Israelis were killed over the same period by Hamas rockets and nine Israeli soldiers died in Gaza, four of whom were victims of “friendly fire.” The Israeli newspaper Haaretz would later report that “Operation Cast Lead” had been prepared over the previous six months.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, who served in the Israeli military, wrote that:

“the brutality of Israel’s soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesman…their propaganda is a pack of lies…It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men.

“Israel’s objective is not just the defense of its population, but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers.”

These series of attacks on Gaza were followed by Israeli assaults in November 2012, known as Operation Pillar of Defence and in July and August 2014 in Operation Protective Edge, a seven week campaign that left 2251 Palestinians dead, along with 73 Israelis, including 67 soldiers.

These assaults by the Israeli military were followed in 2018 by largely peaceful protests by Palestinians, known as The Great March of Return, along Gaza’s fenced-in barrier. Over 266 Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli soldiers and 30,000 more were wounded.

In May 2021, Israel killed more than 256 Palestinians in Gaza following attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Further attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque took place in April 2023.

And then the breaching of the security barriers on October 7, 2023 that enclose Gaza, where Palestinians had languished under a blockade for over 16 years in an open air prison.

The attacks by Palestinian gunmen [Al-Aqsa Deluge] left some 1200 Israeli dead — including hundreds killed by Israel itself — and gave Israel the excuse it had long sought to lay waste to Gaza, in its Swords of Iron War.

This horrific saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged — the erasure of Palestinians from their land. This ceasefire is one more cynical chapter. There are many ways it can and, I suspect, will fall apart.

But let us pray, at least for the moment, that the mass slaughter will stop.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This article is republished from his X account.

With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.

Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua –- and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.

Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as “betrayals”:

• READ MORE: The hopes and fears of displaced West Papuans as a Prabowo presidency looms
• At ICJ, lawyer for Palestine rips US and Fiji for defending Israel
• Fiji human rights group condemns ‘troubling’ support for Israel at ICJ
• West Papua: Once was Papuan Independence Day, now facing ‘ecocide’, transmigration
• COP29: Pacific climate advocates decry outcome as ‘a catastrophic failure’

1. Fiji and PNG ‘betrayal’ UN votes over Palestine
Just two weeks before Christmas, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip under attack from Israel — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against were Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.

The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.

Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.

Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.

Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.

Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.

However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.

Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.

Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.

Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.

Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.

The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.

Condemning the US and Fiji, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared: “Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative.”

Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.

However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.

2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo
For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.

This year was no different in spite of the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate such a visit.

Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.

A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.

But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.

Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.

Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.

Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.

And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.

3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation ‘progress’
When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead (mostly indigenous Kanaks), intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.

I was quoted at the time by The New Zealand Herald and RNZ Pacific of blaming France for having “lost the plot” since 2020.

While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.

This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.

“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.

France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.

In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.

New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.

But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.

However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.

On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.

In other words, back off on the independence demands. Rabuka was quoted by RNZ Pacific reporter Lydia Lewis as saying, “look, don’t slap the hand that has fed you”.

Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.

But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.

5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.

Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.

This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.

Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.

The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.

The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.

The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.

Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.

Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.

Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:

“Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.

This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.

Israel’s Defence Minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the UN-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel”.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the UN buffer zone.

In Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s Foreign Minister and the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the US and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers “terrorist”.

For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who is based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.

Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —

SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.

Report from Damascus: Searching for loved ones in prisons and morgues.  Video: Democracy Now!

SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.”

But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.

HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons.

But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.

SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone.

Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya [prison]. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before.

I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.

So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers.

And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.

What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found.

Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killings in the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.

AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —

SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —

AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.

YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport.

He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body is found.

SARAH EL DEEB: I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.

His heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the US — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.

One of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years.

People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. That is on top of all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.

So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.

REPORTER: Travis.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.

REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.

REPORTER: That’s right.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.

REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a ‘blessing.’” What can you share about him after interviewing him?

SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated.

He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.

His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —

SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?

SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.

I think the search, the US administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria in 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison.

But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons were chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.

U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone https://t.co/iHNIkKKOrs

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 13, 2024

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing.

I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.

SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital.

They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They [Israeli military] entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.

But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.

And I think what her case kind of symbolises is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detentions, these raids.

Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved.

And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.

Next up, today is the 75th day of a hunger strike by Laila Soueif. She’s the mother of prominent British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah. She’s calling on British officials to pressure Egypt for the release of her son. We’ll speak to the Cairo University mathematics professor in London, where she’s been standing outside the Foreign Office. Back in 20 seconds.

This article is republished from the Democracy Now! programme under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

In December 2008, I visited the Abepura prison in Jayapura, West Papua, to verify a report sent to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging abuses inside the jailhouse, as well as shortages of food and water.

After prison guards checked my bag, I passed through a metal detector into the prison hall, joining the Sunday service with about 30 prisoners. A man sat near me. He had a thick beard and wore a small Morning Star flag on his chest.

The flag, a symbol of independence for West Papua, is banned by the Indonesian authorities, so I was a little surprised to see it worn inside the prison.

• READ MORE: ‘If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?’
• Other West Papua reports

He politely introduced himself, “Filep Karma.”

I immediately recognised him. Karma was arrested in 2004 after giving a speech on West Papua nationalism, and had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for “treason”.

When I asked him about torture victims in the prison, he introduced me to some other prisoners, so I could verify the allegations.

It was the beginning of my many interviews with Karma. And I began to understand what made him such a courageous leader.

Born in 1959 in Jayapura, Karma was raised in an elite, educated family.

Student-led protests
In 1998, when Karma returned after studying from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, he found Indonesia engulfed in student-led protests against the authoritarian rule of President Suharto.

On 2 July 1998, he led a ceremony to peacefully raise the Morning Star flag on Biak Island. It prompted a deadly attack by the Indonesian military that the authorities said killed at least eight Papuans, but Papuans recovered 32 bodies. Karma was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Karma gradually emerged as a leader who campaigned peacefully but tirelessly on behalf of the rights of Indigenous Papuans. He also worked as a civil servant, training new government employees.

He was invariably straightforward and precise. He provided detailed data, including names, dates, and actions about torture and other mistreatment at Abepura prison.

Human Rights Watch published these investigations in June 2009. It had quite an impact, prompting media pressure that forced the Ministry of Law and Human Rights to investigate the allegations.

In August 2009, Karma became seriously ill and was hospitalised at the Dok Dua hospital. The doctors examined him several times, and finally, in October, recommended that he be sent for surgery that could only be done in Jakarta.

But bureaucracy, either deliberately or through incompetence, kept delaying his treatment. “I used to be a bureaucrat myself,” Karma said. “But I have never experienced such [use of] red tape on a sick man.”

Health crowdfunding
His health problems, however, drew public attention. Papuan activists started collecting money to pay for the airfare and surgery in Jakarta. I helped write a crowdfunding proposal. People deposited the donations directly into his bank account.

I was surprised when I found out that the total donation, including from some churches, had almost reached IDR1 billion (US$700,000). It was enough to also pay for his mother, Eklefina Noriwari, an uncle, a cousin and an assistant to travel with him. They rented a guest house near the hospital.

Some wondered why he travelled with such a large entourage. The answer is that Indigenous Papuans distrust the Indonesian government. Many of their political leaders had mysteriously died while receiving medical treatment in Jakarta. They wanted to ensure that Filep Karma was safe.

When he was admitted to Cikini hospital, the ward had a small security cordon. I saw many Indonesian security people, including four prison guards, guarding his room, but also church delegates, visiting him.

Papuan students, mostly waiting in the inner yard, said they wanted to make sure, “Our leader is okay.”

After a two-hour surgery, Karma recovered quickly, inviting me and my wife to visit him. His mother and his two daughters, Audryn and Andrefina, also visited my Jakarta apartment. In July 2011, after 11 days in the hospital, he was considered fit enough to return to prison.

In May 2011, the Washington-based Freedom Now filed a petition with the UN Working Group on arbitrary detention on Karma’s behalf. Six months later, the Working Group determined that his detention violated international standards, saying that Indonesia’s courts “disproportionately” used the laws against treason, and called for his immediate release.

President refused to act
But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono refused to act, prompting criticism at the UN forum on the discrimination and abuses against Papuans.

I often visited Karma in prison. He took a correspondence course at Universitas Terbuka, studying police science. He read voraciously.

He studied Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King on non-violent movements and moral courage. He also drew, using pencil and charcoal. He surprised me with my portrait that he drew on a Jacob’s biscuit box.

His name began to appear globally. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei drew political prisoners, including Karma, in an exhibition at Alcatraz prison near San Francisco. Amnesty International produced a video about Karma.

Interestingly, he also read my 2011 book on journalism, “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme (My “Religion” Is Journalism), apparently inspiring him to write his own book. He used an audio recorder to express his thoughts, asking his friends to type and to print outside, which he then edited.

His 137-page book was published in November 2014, entitled, Seakan Kitorang Setengah Binatang: Rasialisme Indonesia di Tanah Papua (As If We’re Half Animals: Indonesian Racism in West Papua). It became a very important book on racism against Indigenous Papuans in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government, under new President Joko Widodo, finally released Karma in November 2015, and after that gradually released more than 110 political prisoners from West Papua and the Maluku Islands.

Release from jail celebration
Hundreds of Papuan activists welcomed Karma, bringing him from the prison to a field to celebrate with dancing and singing. He called me that night, saying that he had that “strange feeling” of missing the Abepura prison, his many inmate friends, his vegetable garden, as well as the boxing club, which he managed. He had spent 11 years inside the Abepura prison.

“It’s nice to be back home though,” he said laughing.

He slowly rebuilt his activism, traveling to many university campuses throughout Indonesia, also overseas, and talking about human rights abuses, the environmental destruction in West Papua, as well as his advocacy for an independent West Papua.

Students often invited him to talk about his book.

In Jakarta, he rented a studio near my apartment as his stopping point. We met socially, and also attended public meetings together. I organised his birthday party in August 2018. He bought new gear for his scuba diving. My wife, Sapariah, herself a diving enthusiast, noted that Karma was an excellent diver: “He swims like a fish.”

The resistance of Papuans in Indonesia to discrimination took on a new phase following a 17 August 2019 attack by security forces on a Papuan student dormitory in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, in which the students were subjected to racial insults.

The attack renewed discussions on anti-Papuan racial discrimination and sovereignty for West Papua. Papuan students and others acting through a social media movement called Papuan Lives Matter, inspired by Black Lives Matter in the United States, took part in a wave of protests that broke out in many parts of Indonesia.

Everyone reading Karma’s book
Everyone was reading Filep Karma’s book. Karma protested when these young activists, many of whom he personally knew, such as Sayang Mandabayan, Surya Anta Ginting and Victor Yeimo, were arrested and charged with treason.

“Protesting racism should not be considered treason,” he said.

The Indonesian government responded by detaining hundreds. Papuans Behind Bars, a nongovernmental organisation that monitors politically motivated arrests in West Papua, recorded 418 new cases from October 2020 to September 2021. At least 245 of them were charged, found guilty, and imprisoned for joining the protests, with 109 convicted of “treason”.

However, while in the past, Papuans charged with political offences typically were sentenced to years — in Karma’s case, 15 years — in the recent cases, perhaps because of international and domestic attention, the Indonesian courts handed down much shorter sentences, often time already served.

The coronavirus pandemic halted his activism in 2020-2022. He had plenty of time for scuba diving and spearfishing. Once he posted on Facebook that when a shark tried to steal his fish, he smacked it on the snout.

On 1 November 2022, my good friend Filep Karma was found dead on a Jayapura beach. He had apparently gone diving alone. He was wearing his scuba diving suit.

His mother, Eklefina Noriwari, called me that morning, telling me that her son had died. “I know you’re his close friend,” she told me. “Please don’t be sad. He died doing what he liked best . . . the sea, the swimming, the diving.”

West Papua was in shock. More than 30,000 people attended his funeral, flying the Morning Star flag, as their last act of respect for a courageous man. Mourners heard the speakers celebrating Filep Karma’s life, and then quietly went home.

It was peaceful. And this is exactly what Filep Karma’s message is about.

Andreas Harsono is the Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch and the author of its new report, “If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?”: Discrimination and Other Abuses Against Papuans in Indonesia. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific and is republished with the author’s permission.

France has been criticised for the “alarming” death toll in New Caledonia during recent protests and its “cold shower” approach to decolonisation by experts of the UN Human Rights Committee.

The UN committee met this week in Geneva for France’s five-yearly human rights review with a focus on its Pacific territory, after peaceful protests over electoral changes turned violent leaving 13 people dead since May.

French delegates at the hearing defended the country’s actions and rejected the jurisdiction of the UN decolonisation process, saying the country “no longer has any international obligations”.

• READ MORE: PM defends Fiji’s UN ‘ambush’ vote – challenged by human rights advocate
• Rabuka’s message to free Kanaky movement: ‘Don’t slap the hand that feeds you’
• ‘We’ll be talking about the future of negotiations’, says Rabuka on New Caledonia mission
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports
• Other CHOGM reports

A delayed fact-finding mission of Pacific Islands Forum leaders is due to arrive in New Caledonia this weekend to assess the situation on behalf of the region’s peak regional inter-governmental body.

Almost 7000 security personnel with armoured vehicles have been deployed from France to New Caledonia to quell further unrest.

“The means used and the intensity of their response and the gravity of the violence reported, as well as the amount of dead and wounded, are particularly alarming,” said committee member Jose Santo Pais, assistant Prosecutor-General of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.

“There have been numerous allegations regarding an excessive use of force and that would have led to numerous deaths among the Kanak people and law enforcement,” the committee’s vice-chair said on Wednesday.

Months of protests
Violence erupted after months of protests over a unilateral attempt by President Emmanuel Macron to “unfreeze” the territory’s electoral roll. Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their voting power and any chance of success at another independence referendum.

Eleven Kanaks and two French police have died. The committee heard 169 people were wounded and 2658 arrested in the past five months.

New Caledonia’s economy is in ruins with hundreds of businesses destroyed, tens-of-thousands left jobless and the local government seeking 4 billion euros (US$4.33 billion) in recovery funds from France.

France’s reputation has been left battered as an out-of-touch colonial power since the deadly violence erupted.

Santos Pais questioned France’s commitment to the UN Declaration on Indigenous People and the “sufficient dialogue” required under the Nouméa Accord, a peace agreement signed in 1998 to politically empower Kanak people, that enabled the decolonisation process.

“It would seem that current violence in the territory is linked to the lack of progress in decolonisation,” said Santos Pais.

Last week, the new French Prime Minister announced controversial electoral changes that sparked the protests had been abandoned. Local elections, due to be held this year, will now take place at the end of 2025.

Pacific mission
Tomorrow, Tonga’s prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni will lead a Pacific “observational” mission to New Caledonia of fellow leaders from Cook Islands, Fiji and Solomon Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs, together known as the “Troika-Plus”.

The PIF leaders’ three-day visit to the capital Nouméa will see them meet with local political parties, youth and community groups, private sector and public service providers.

“Our thoughts have always been with the people of New Caledonia since the unrest earlier this year, and we continue to offer our support,” Sovaleni said in a statement on Friday.

The UN committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts that regularly reviews compliance by 173 member states with their human rights obligations and is separate from the Human Rights Council, a political body composed of states.

Serbian committee member Tijana Surlan asked France for an update on investigations into injuries and fatalities “related to alleged excessive use of force” in New Caledonia. She asked if police firearms use would be reviewed “to strike a better balance with the principles of absolute necessity and strict proportionality.”

France’s delegation responded saying it was “committed to renewing dialogue” in New Caledonia and to striking a balance between the right to demonstrate and protecting people and property with the “principle of proportionality.”

Alleged intimidation by French authorities of at least five journalists covering the unrest in New Caledonia was highlighted by committee member Kobauyah Tchamdja Kapatcha from Togo. France responded saying it guarantees freedom of the press.

France rejects ‘obligations’
The French delegation led by Ambassador for Human Rights Isabelle Rome added it “no longer administers a non-self-governing territory.”

France “no longer has any international obligations in this regard linked to its membership in the United Nations”, she told the committee on Thursday.

New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three referendums were part of the Nouméa Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.

A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing with the status quo. Supporters of independence rejected its legitimacy due to a very low turnout — it was boycotted by Kanak political parties — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.

“France, through the referendum of September [2021], has therefore completed the process of decolonisation of its former colonies,” ambassador Rome said. She added that New Caledonia was one of the most advanced examples of the French government recognising indigenous rights, with a shared governance framework.

Another of its Pacific territories — French Polynesia — was re-inscribed on the UN decolonisation list in 2013 but France refuses to recognise its jurisdiction.

No change in policy
After a decade, France began attending General Assembly Decolonisation Committee meetings in 2023 to “promote dialogue” and that it was not a “change in [policy] direction”, Rome said.

“There is no process between the French state and the Polynesian territory that reserves a role for the United Nations,” she added.

Santos Pais responded saying, “what a cold shower”.

“The General Assembly will certainly have a completely different view from the one that was presented to us,” he said.

Earlier this month pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson told the UN Decolonisation Committee’s annual meeting in New York that “after a decade of silence” France must be “guided” to participate in “dialogue.”

The Human Rights Committee is due to meet again next month to adopt its findings on France.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

On August 3, last Saturday, prisoner rights institutions and Palestinians all around the world were standing in solidarity with Gaza and Palestininian prisoners. This day is dedicated to highlighting Israeli crimes and violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and the continuing genocide in Gaza.

The machinery of brutality that punishes and tortures in secrecy in Israeli prisons must be brought to light.

Since October 7, Palestinian detainees have faced horrific crimes.

• READ MORE: Palestinian prisoners describe systemic abuse in Israel’s jails
• Other torture of Palestinians reports

Shortly after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel was cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel to Gaza, effectively announcing the start of the genocide, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir launched his own war against Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails and camps, by declaring a policy of “overcrowding”.

Since then, the Israeli army and security services have launched mass arrest campaigns, which have swelled the number of Palestinian citizens from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to 9800.

At least 335 women and 680 children have been arrested. More than 3400 have been put under administrative detention — that is, they are held indefinitely without charge. Among them, there are 22 women and 40 children.

There has never been such a high number of administrative detainees since 1967.

Gaza arrests number unknown
Israel has also arrested an unknown number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, possibly exceeding thousands, according to our humble estimates. They are held under the 2002 “Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law”, which allows the Israeli army to detain people without issuing a detention order.

Israeli prisons cut food rations for Palestinians to the point of starvation since 7 Oct.

Testimonies of freed prisoners reveal that Israeli authorities rapidly converted more than a dozen prison facilities into a network of torture camps for Palestinian detainees. >> pic.twitter.com/BzciJGfzGY

— B’Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) August 7, 2024

Under Ben-Gvir’s orders, the already grave conditions in Israeli prisons have been made even worse. The prison authorities sharply reduced food rations and water, closing down the small shops where Palestinian detainees could purchase food and other necessities.

They also cut off water and power and even reduced the time allocated to using the restrooms. Prisoners are also prohibited from showering, which has resulted in the spread of diseases, especially skin-related ones like scabies.

There have been reports of Palestinian prisoners being deprived of medical care.

The systematic malnutrition and dehydration Palestinian prisoners are facing has taken a toll. The few that are released leave detention centres in horrific physical condition.

Even the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that such weaponisation of food is “unacceptable”.

The use of torture, including rape and beatings, has become widespread. There have been shocking reports about prison guards urinating on detainees, torturing them with electric shock and using dogs to sexually assault them.

Human shield detainees
There have been even testimonies of Israeli forces using detainees as human shields during combat in Gaza.

The systemic use of torture and other ill-treatment has predictably gone as far as extrajudicial killings.

According to a recent report by Hebrew daily Haaretz, 48 Palestinians have died in detention centres. Among them is Thaer Abu Asab, who was brutally beaten by Israeli prison guards in Ketziot Prison, and died of his injuries at the age of 38.

According to Haaretz, 36 Gaza detainees have also died in the Sde Teiman camp. Testimonies from Israeli medical staff working at the detention centre have revealed horrific conditions for Palestinians held there.

Detainees are reportedly often operated on without anaesthesia and some have had to have their limbs amputated because they were shackled even when sleeping or receiving treatment.

Palestinians who have been released have said what they were subject to was more horrific than what they had heard took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention centres, where American forces tortured and forcibly disappeared Arabs and other Muslim men.

They have also testified that some detainees were killed through torture and severe beatings. One prisoner from Bethlehem, Moazaz Obaiat, who was released in July, has alleged that Ben-Gvir personally took part in torturing him.

Denied lawyer, family visits
Israeli authorities have denied prisoners visits by lawyers, family, and even medics, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. They have carried out acts of collective punishment, destroying the homes of their families, arresting their relatives and holding them hostage, and illegally transferring some to secret detention camps and military bases without disclosing their fate, which constitutes the crime of enforced disappearance.

Despite condemnations from various human rights orgaisations, Ben-Gvir and the rest of the Israeli governing coalition have doubled down on these policies. “[Prisoners] should be killed with a shot to the head and the bill to execute Palestinian prisoners must be passed in the third reading in the Knesset […]

“Until then, we will give them minimal food to survive. I don’t care,” Ben-Gvir said on July 1.

Electric shocks, rape, and torture to death.. Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons face serious violations, with some families receiving news of their deaths weeks later.

Euro-Med Monitor regularly documents dozens of testimonies from released Palestinian detainees and… pic.twitter.com/o04T1JS9bG

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) August 7, 2024

By using mass detention, Israel, the occupying power, has systematically destroyed Palestinian social, economic and psychological fabric since 1967. Over one million Palestinians have been arrested since then, thousands have been held hostage for extended periods under administrative detention and 255 detainees have died in Israeli prisons.

Israeli crimes against the Palestinians did not begin in October 2023, but are a continuation of a systematic process of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and apartheid that began even before 1948.

But Israel’s colonial regime overlooks the Palestinian people’s resilience. Inspired by the experiences of the free nations of Ireland, South Africa and Vietnam, we draw strength from our determination to achieve our right to self-determination, freedom and independence.

This is why on this day, August 3, we urged the world to collectively protest against Israeli occupation crimes and racist laws and we call on governments to uphold their legal duties to prevent such crimes from happening.

Political prisoners solidarity
We also called on unions, universities, parliaments and political parties to effectively participate in large-scale events, demonstrations and digital campaigns in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners.

The international community should hold the occupying power to account by imposing a complete arms embargo on it, applying economic sanctions, and suspending its UN membership.

They should also nullify bilateral agreements, and halt Israel’s participation in international forums and events until it abides by international law and human rights. The international community must compel Israel to protect civilians according to its obligations as an occupying power.

Israel must also reveal the identities and conditions of people it has forcibly disappeared. We demand an end to arbitrary and administrative detention policies. The bodies of those who have died inside and outside prisons must also be released, and all prisoners must receive legal protection.

Israel, the occupying power, is under the obligation to allow special rapporteurs, United Nations experts, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor to visit Palestine, inspect prisons and deliver justice for the victims, including material and moral compensation.

Israel must not be allowed to get away with these horrific crimes.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian political leader and a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee, says Israel’s “gangster style assassination and extrajudicial executions” are designed to “inflame the whole region”, reports Al Jazeera.

The killings of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Lebanon, were carried out to “sabotage any chances” of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and regional de-escalation, Ashrawi said.

Haniyeh was a chief Hamas negotiator for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war and had built up formidable diplomatic credentials across the region.

• READ MORE: US sends warplanes, battleships to region amid Iran-Israel tension
• Promoting peace and stability in the Middle East by unconditionally backing its worst aggressor
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

While Israel and the United States regarded him as a “terrorist”, thousands mourned him across the Middle East yesterday, demonstrated huge and widespread support and respect.

“These are attacks not just on the capitals of sovereign states but also on significant leaders to ensure total provocation [and] destabilisation,” Ashrawi wrote on social media.

“Israel is a rogue state that represents a real [and] present danger globally,” she said.

‘Maddening and shameful’
Marking the 300th day of Israel’s war on Gaza yesterday, Palestinian-American scholar Noura Erakat said it was “maddening and shameful” that the world had not been able to stop one of the “grossest, most blatant colonial genocides”.

In a post on social media, Erakat said Israel’s genocide in Gaza had featured the use of advanced weapons as well as the spread of disease, “poisoning of the earth” as well as sexual assault and torture, reports Al Jazeera.

Israel’s genocide must be remembered for what it is, Erakat said, adding “we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative”.

“A blight on all humanity, to ascribe shame to all who let it happen [and] glory to those who fought so that the future indeed ensures: never again,” she said.

Day 300. Its maddening and shameful we have not been able to end one of the grossest, most blatant colonial #genocides feat disease, poisoning of the earth, sexual assualt, torture, & advanced weapons. This will end & we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative (1/2)

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) August 1, 2024

According to an analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Israel is responsible for 17,081 incidents of air/drone raids, shelling/missile attacks, remote explosives and property destruction in eight countries since October 7, including the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Iran and Iraq.

A majority of these attacks were on the Palestinian territory, specifically the Gaza Strip, with 10,389 incidents accounting for more than 60 percent of the total offensives.

There were at least 6,544 incidents of Israeli attacks on Lebanon (38 percent), followed by Syria with 144 such incidents recorded.

Haniyeh funeral final ceremonies in Qatar.           Video: Al Jazeera

Released 15 Palestinian prisoners tortured
Israeli forces have released 15 Palestinian prisoners into Gaza. They were dropped off at a military checkpoint near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Many spoke of abuse and torture while detained.

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report.

The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention.

It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers.

The death toll in the genocidal war at the 300 day mark has topped 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,000 children.

SPECIAL REPORT: Samidoun

On Friday, July 5, France announced the continued provisional detention on mainland France of 5 Kanak defendants, out of seven pro-independence “leaders” who had been deported from Kanaky New Caledonia on June 23.

The subsequent announcements of the arrest of 11 pro-independence activists, including 9 provisional detentions (including Joël Tjibaou and Gilles Jorédié, incarcerated in Camp Est) and 7 incarcerations in mainland France (Christian Tein, Frédérique Muliava, Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, Dimitri Tein Qenegei, Guillaume Vama, Steve Unë and Yewa Waethane), more than 17,000 kilometres from their homeland, revived the mobilisations that had begun a month earlier as part of the fight against the plan to “unfreeze” the Kanaky electoral body.

Suspended after President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, this project actually aims to reverse the achievements of the Nouméa Accords signed in 1998.

• READ MORE:  PIF hopes to send delegation to New Caledonia, says Forum chair
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

It is part of the strategy of strengthening French colonialism in Kanaky by extending the ability to vote on local matters, including independence referandums, to an even greater number of settlers, making the indigenous Kanaks a de facto minority at the ballot box.

On July 11, 10 Centaur armoured vehicles, 15 fire trucks, a dozen all-terrain military armoured vehicles and numerous army trucks were landed by ship in Kanaky, where the population remains under curfew.

This entire sequence bears witness to the manner in which France, through its colonial administration, deploys a repressive security arsenal that on the one hand protects the settlers on the land and their reactionary militias, and on the other, attempts to destroy the country’s Kanak independence movement.

Imprisonment and incarceration are a weapon of choice in this overall colonial strategy.

Imprisonment is one of the key weapons of choice in colonial strategies to try to stifle independence and national liberation struggles, from the Zionist regime in Palestine to allied imperialist countries and colonial empires such as France.

While the figures are incomparable due to differences between the populations and conditions, in the West Bank, according to Stéphanie Latte Abdallah, one in three Palestinians has experienced one or more incarcerations during their life since 1967, or 35 percent of the population, while in Kanaky, the Nouméa prison, known as Camp Est, is populated by 95 percent Kanaks, while they represent only 39 to 43 percent of the Caledonian population.

Nicknamed “the island of oblivion” by the prisoners, the Camp Est prison locks up many young Kanaks excluded from the economic, educational and health systems, and symbolises the French colonial continuum, especially as the building partly occupies the space of the former French penal colony imposed there.

Silence of sociologists
Few studies exist of this over-incarceration of the Kanak population, and as Hamid Mokadem reminds us:

“The silence of sociologists and demographers on ethno-cultural inequalities is inversely proportional to the chatter of anthropologists on Kanak customs and culture.”

The incarceration rate is significantly higher than in mainland France, so much so that a new prison has been built.

The Koné detention center, and a project to replace Camp Est was announced in February 2024 by the Minister of Justice. He promised a 600-bed facility (compared to the 230 cells available at Camp Est) that would emerge after a construction project estimated at 500 million euros (NZ$908 million).

This is the largest investment by the French state on Kanak soil, a deadly promise that at the same time reaffirms France’s imperialist project in the Pacific, driven by its financial and geopolitical interests to retain its colonial properties there.

While waiting for this large-scale prison project, new cells have been fitted out in containers on which a double mesh roof has been installed, many without windows, and where the conditions of incarceration are even harsher than in the other sections of the prison, including those for men, women and minors, pre-trial detainees and those who have been convicted and sentenced.

The over-representation of the Kanak population has only increased, since incarceration has been one of the mechanisms through which the French government attempts to stem the movement against the plan to “unfreeze” and expand the electoral body, with 1139 arrests since mid-May.

The penalty of deportation
Local detention was supplemented by another penalty directly inherited from the Code de l’Indigénat: the penalty of deportation.

On June 23, after the announcement of the arrest of 7 Kanak independence activists in metropolitan France, the population learned that they were going to be deported 17,000 km from their homes.

A plane was waiting to transfer them to metropolitan France during their pretrial detention, all seven of them dispersed across the prisons of Dijon, Mulhouse, Bourges, Blois, Nevers, Villefranche and Riom.

This deportation of activists in the context of pre-trial detention directly recalls the events of 1988, and more broadly the way in which prison and removal were used in a colonial context.

From the 19th century and the deportation of Toussaint Louverture of Haiti to France, thousands of Algerians arrested during the uprisings against the French colonisation of Algeria at the same time as the detention of the prisoners of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Vietnamese of Hanoi in 1913, were deported to Kanaky or other colonies such as Guyana.

More recently, the Algerian revolutionaries, were massively incarcerated in metropolitan colonial prisons. From a principle inherited from the indigénat, and although today we have moved from an administrative decision to a judicial decision, the practice of deportation remains the same.

Particularly used in the context of anti-colonial resistance movements, the deportation of Kanak prisoners to metropolitan colonial prisons has been used on this scale since 1988 in Kanaky.

Ouvéa cave massacre
After the massacre of 19 Kanak independence fighters who had taken police officers prisoner in the Ouvéa cave, activists still alive were imprisoned, then deported, then released as part of the Matignon-Oudinot Accords.

Twenty six Kanak prisoners came to populate the prisons of the Paris region while they were still in preventive detention — while awaiting their trials and therefore presumed innocent, as is the case today for the CCAT activists currently incarcerated.

In the 1980s, French prisons were shaken by major revolts, particularly against the racism of the guards, who were mostly affiliated with the then-nascent Front National (FN), and more broadly against the penal policy of the Mitterrand left and the massively expanding length of sentences imposed at the time.

In 1988, as former prisoners wrote afterwards, some made a point of showing their solidarity with the Kanaks by sharing their clothes and food with them.

Because many of the activists were transferred in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, in trying conditions, with their hands cuffed during the 24-hour journey, underhand repression techniques of the Prison Administration that are still in force.

Similar deportation conditions were described by Christian Téin, spokesperson for the CCAT incarcerated in the isolation wing of the Mulhouse-Lutterbach Penitentiary Center. The  shock of incarceration is all the more violent.

Added to this is the pain of the forced separation of parents and children, which is found not only in the current situation in metropolitan France but also in Palestine. Also there is great difficulty in finding loved ones, in attempting to find out which prisons they are in, or even if they are currently detained, continually encountering administrative violence, with the absence of information and the cruelty of official figures.

Orchestrated psychological impact
All this is orchestrated so that the psychological impact, in the long term, aims to induce the prisoners and also their families to stop fighting.

At the time of the events in Ouvéa, the uprooting of independence activists from their lands to lock them up in mainland France was commonplace, and the Kanak detainees joined those from the Caribbean Revolutionary Alliance such as Luc Reinette and Georges Faisans, incarcerated in Île-de-France during the 1980s alongside Corsican and Basque prisoners.

Since then, this had only happened once, in the context of the uprisings in Guadeloup in 2021, where several local figures, mostly community activists, had been deported and then incarcerated in mainland France and Martinique in an attempt to stifle the revolts in which a large number of Guadeloupean youth were mobilised.

Here again, we could draw a parallel with Palestine. As Assia Zaino points out, since the 2000s, the incarceration of Palestinians has systematically been synonymous with being torn away from their families and loved ones.

Zionist prisons, located within the Palestinian territories colonised in 1948, “are integrated into the civil prison system [. . . ] and entry bans on Israeli soil are frequently imposed on the families of detainees for security reasons,” which in fact aims to attack the relatives of detainees and destabilise the national liberation struggle.

From prison, the struggle continues
This mass incarceration is confronted by the powerful presence of prisoners as symbols of courage and resistance.

We know that in Palestine, as during the Algerian war of national liberation, incarceration is an opportunity to learn from one’s people, to forge national revolutionary consciousness but also to continue the struggle, very concretely, by mobilising against incarceration.

Because the Palestinian prisoners’ movement has transformed the colonial prison into a school of revolution: each political party has a prison branch whose political bureau or leadership is made up of imprisoned leaders.

These branches have real weight in the decisions taken outside the walls, and they are the ones responsible for leading the struggle in the colonial prisons, in particular by declaring collective hunger strikes and developing alliances of struggle that can mobilise several thousand prisoners, but also for organising the daily life of revolutionaries in prison.

It was this movement of prisoners that played a major role in driving the Palestinian resistance groups to unite under a unified command with the total liberation of historic Palestine as their compass, and to overcome internal contradictions.

Historically, the prisoners also constituted a significant part the most radical elements of the Palestinian revolution, notably by massively refusing any negotiation with the Zionist state at the time when the disastrous Oslo Accords were being prepared.

Resistance in colonial prisons can also take cultural forms, as illustrated by the very rich Palestinian prison literature, composed of literary works written in secret and smuggled out by prisoners to bear witness to the outside world of the vitality of their ideals, their struggle and the conditions of detention.

Courage of the children
An example is Walid Daqqah, a renowned writer and one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners, who was martyred on 7 April 2024 during his 38th year of detention in colonial prisons.

In short, from the children and adolescents who wear courageous smiles as they leave their trials surrounded by soldiers, to the women of Damon prison who heroically stand up to their jailers, to the resistance of the prisoners who fight by putting their lives and health at risk while having a central role in the Resistance outside, it is the daily struggle of the prisoners’ movement that makes detention a place where resistance to the colonial regime is organised, continuing even inside detention.

As Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator, said:

“Despite the intention to use political imprisonment to suppress Palestinian resistance and derail the Palestinian liberation movement, Palestinian prisoners have remained political leaders and symbols of steadfastness for the struggle as a whole.”

In Kanaky, it was the announcement of the incarceration of CCAT activists on June 23 that relaunched the movement, who became the driving forces behind this new round of mobilisation.

On May 13, while the population was setting up roadblocks on the main roads of Nouméa, a mutiny broke out in the Camp Est prison in reaction to the plan to unfreeze the electoral body.

The prison was therefore directly part of the mobilisation, and three guards were taken hostage on this first day of struggle. They were quickly released after the RAID (French national police tactical unit) intervened.

But during the night of May 14-15, another revolt took place in the prison, rendering no fewer than 80 cells unusable.

It is therefore in this context of uprising and intifada throughout Kanaky, both in prisons and outside, that the announcement of the deportation of the 7 Kanak leaders took place.

In addition to these highly publicised deportations, there were also dozens of similar cases of transfers from Camp Est.

Completely ignored by the government, these took place both before May 23 and during the month of July, including participants in the prison uprisings as well as long-term prisoners transferred to relieve congestion in the Kanak prison.

Silence which masks the scale of these colonial deportations only intends to make the task of the families and political supporters of the Kanaks even more difficult in their attempt to show solidarity with the prisoners.

Furthermore, upon their arrival in mainland France, the CCAT activists were separated into 7 different prisons, directly recalling the policy of dispersion already at work in Spain at the end of the 1980s against ETA prisoners, in reaction to the effectiveness of their prison organising.

Today as yesterday, the colonial power dispatches prisoners throughout the mainland to prevent a collective counter-offensive. The prisoners’ connections with one another, but also with the outside, are consequently largely hampered.

This isolation directly aims to break the movement by tearing off its “head” and preventing any form of common struggle against this confinement. We therefore know that the momentum of struggle outside seems to respond to a hardening of detention conditions inside prisons, as evidenced by the isolation in which the CCAT activists are kept.

Likewise in Palestine, where since last October 7, mass arrests have escalated to the development of military concentration camps characterised by inhumane conditions of incarceration where severe torture is a daily, routine occurrence.

Currently, both for the more than 9300 Palestinian prisoners detained in the 19 Zionist colonial prisons, and for the thousands of prisoners from Gaza arrested during the genocidal offensive of the occupying forces on the Strip incarcerated in military camps, the conditions of detention have deteriorated significantly.

If in the colonial prisons Palestinian prisoners suffer hunger, collective isolation, overcrowding, violence and physical and psychological torture, conditions which have led to the martyrdom of at least 18 prisoners since October 7, in the military detention camps the situation is even more extreme.

The thousands of prisoners from Gaza held there are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day, forced to kneel on the ground, motionless for most of the day, raped and sexually assaulted and tortured daily, which leaves the released prisoners with enormous trauma.

Sick prisoners are crammed in naked, equipped with diapers, on beds without mattresses or blankets, in military airplane hangars and warehouses and without any medical care.

In all cases, isolation reigns, in prisons as in military detention centers, and the Zionist regime aims to cut off the Palestinian prisoners — and their collective movement — from the outside world.

Stories of prison escapes
Beyond the heroic prison uprisings, many stories of escapes from colonial prisons also fuel resistance and demonstrate the resilience of prisoners.

In Palestine, to cite a recent example, we recall the “Freedom Tunnel” operation, where six Palestinian prisoners freed themselves from the Zionist-occupied Gilboa high-security prison by digging a tunnel using a spoon.

The six Palestinians — Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — became Palestinian, Arab and international symbols of Palestinian resistance and the will for freedom.

While they were all rearrested, their escape exposed the weaknesses under the colonial myth of “impenetrable Israeli security”, plunging the occupation’s prison system into an internal crisis.

In France, the CRAs (Administrative Detention Centres) represent an ultra-violent manifestation of racism and the management of exiles. People are locked up in terrible and therefore deadly conditions.

Thus, faced with colonial management of populations, particularly from former French colonies, resistance is being organised.

For example, on the night of Friday, June 21 to Saturday, June 22, 14 people held at the CRA in Vincennes managed to escape (only one person has been re-arrested since).

This follows the escape of 11 detainees in December from this same place of confinement. However, these detention centres are often recent and very well equipped.

From Palestine to the Hegaxone and the colonial prisons in Kanaky, the resistance fighters fight day by day within the prison system itself, and the escapes and uprisings in the prisons are events that weaken the colonial propaganda and its myth of invincibility and total superiority.

Resistance continues
Despite the tightening of detention conditions and the security arsenal that is deployed against liberation movements, it is clear that the resistance is not stopping and that, on the contrary, organizing is becoming even more vigorous.

In Kanaky, new blockades in solidarity with the prisoners have spread well beyond Nouméa since June 23, demanding their immediate release and repatriation to Kanaky, since “touching one of them is touching everyone”.

In mainland France, numerous gatherings have also taken place since Monday at the call of the MKF (Kanak Movement in France), and among others led by the Collectif Solidarité Kanaky in front of the Ministry of Justice in Paris, and also in front of the prisons where the activists are still incarcerated.

Their prison numbers have been made public so that it is possible to write to them and so that broad and massive support can be communicated to them in order to provide them with the strength necessary for this fight from metropolitan France.

From now on, tributes to the Kanak martyrs who fell under the bullets of the colonial militias and the French State are joined by banners for the freedom of the prisoners.

Marah Bakir, a representative of Palestinian women prisoners, arrested at the age of 15 by the colonial army and imprisoned for 8 years, made these comments during her first interview given upon her release on 24 November 2023:

“It is very difficult to feel freedom and to be liberated in exchange for the blood of the martyrs of Gaza and the great sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip.”  

The Kanaky ‘martyrs’:
Stéphanie Nassaie Doouka, 17, and Chrétien Neregote, 36, shot in the head on May 20 by a business manager.

Djibril Saïko Salo, 19, shot in the back on May 15 by loyalist settlers at a roadblock.

Dany Tidjite, 48, killed by an off-duty police officer who tried to impose a roadblock.

Joseph Poulawa, 34, killed on May 28 by two bullets in the chest and shoulder by the GIGN (the elite police tactical unit of the National Gendarmerie of France)

Lionel Païta, 26, killed on June 3 by a bullet to the head by a police officer at a roadblock.

Victorin Rock Wamytan, known as “Banane”, 38 years old, father of two children, killed on July 10 by a shot in the chest by the GIGN on customary lands

In Kanaky, the names of these martyrs, just like the 19 of the Ouvéa cave, will remain forever in the memory of the activists and people, and as one could read on another banner in Noumea: “The fight must not cease for lack of a leader or fighters, this direction remains forever. Kanaky”

This article, by Samidoun Paris Banlieue, was published first in French at: https://samidoun.net/fr/2024/07/la-question-carcerale-dans-la-colonisation-de-la-kanaky-a-la-palestine/. During the protests in Kanaky in May and ongoing, French military forces targeted demonstrators, imposed a countrywide ban on TikTok, and have seized multiple political prisoners from the Kanak independence movement. This article is republished from Samidoun.

A group of pro-independence leaders charged with allegedly organising protests that turned into violent unrest in New Caledonia last month have been indicted and transferred to mainland France where they will be held in custody pending trial.

Christian Téin and 10 others were arrested by French security forces during a dawn operation in Nouméa last Wednesday.

Since then, they have been held for a preliminary period not exceeding 96 hours.

• READ MORE:  New Caledonia independence activists sent to France for detention
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‘If this was about making new martyrs of the pro-independence cause, then there would not have been a better way to do it.’

— A defence lawyer

The indicted group members are suspected of “giving orders” within a “Field Action Coordinating Cell” (CCAT) that was set up last year by Union Calédonienne (UC), the largest and one of the more radical parties forming the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) unbrella group.

On behalf of CCAT, Téin organised a series of marches and protests, mainly peaceful, in New Caledonia, to oppose plans by the French government to change eligibility rules for local elections, which the pro-independence movement said would further marginalise indigenous Kanak voters.

Late on Saturday, New Caledonia’s Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media the indictment followed a decision made by one of the two “liberties and detention” judges dedicated to the case on the same day.

The judge had ruled that Christian Téin should be temporarily transferred to a jail in Mulhouse (northeastern France), Téin’s lawyer Pierre Ortet told media.

Téin was seen entering the investigating judge’s chambers on Saturday afternoon, local time, and leaving the office about half an hour later after he had been told of his indictment.

Other suspects include Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, described as the CCAT’s communications officer, who is to be transferred to another French jail in Dijon (southeast France).

Frédérique Muliava, described as chief-of-staff of New Caledonia’s Congress President Roch Wamytan (also a major figure of the UC party), is to be sent to another jail in Riom (near Clermont-Ferrand, Central France).

The “presumed order-givers of the acts committed starting from 12 May 2024” are facing a long list of charges, including incitement, conspiracy, and complicity to instigate murders on officers entrusted with public authority.

The transfer was decided to “ensure investigations can continue in a serene way and away from any pressure”, Dupas said.

‘Shock’, ‘surprise’, ‘stupor’ reactions
Thomas Gruet, Wanabo-Ipeze’s lawyer, commented with shock about the judge’s decision: “My client would never have imagined ending up here. She is extremely shocked because, in her view, this is just about activism.”

He said his client had “spent the whole of her first night (of indictment) handcuffed”.

Gruet said he was “extremely shocked and astounded” by this decision.

“I believe all the mistakes regarding the management of this crisis have now been made by the judiciary, which has responded politically. My client is an activist who has never called for violence. This will be a long trial, but we will demonstrate that she has never committed the charges she faces.”

About midnight local time, Gruet was seen bringing his client a large pink suitcase containing a few personal effects which he had collected from her house.

The transferred suspects are believed to have boarded a special flight in the early hours of Sunday.

Téin’s lawyer, Pierre Ortet, said “we are surprised and in a stupor”.

“We have already appealed (the ruling). Mr Téin intends to defend himself against the charges. It will be a long and complicated case.”

Another defence lawyer, Stéphane Bonomo, commented: “If this was about making new martyrs of the pro-independence cause, then there would not have been a better way to do it.”

On the French national political level and in the context of electoral campaigning ahead of the snap general election, to be held on 30 June and 7 July, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said the decision to transfer Téin was “an alienation of his rights and a gross and dramatic political mistake”.

Other indicted persons
Among other persons who were indicted at the weekend are Guillaume Vama and Joël Tjibaou, the son of charismatic pro-independence FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who signed the Matignon Accord peace agreement in 1988 and was assassinated one year later by a hardline member of the pro-independence movement.

Tjibaou and several others have asked for a delay to prepare their defence and they will be heard tomorrow.

Pending that hearing, they will not be transferred to mainland France and will be kept in custody in Nouméa, Tjibaou’s lawyer Claire Ghiani said.

Why CCAT leaders are targeted
The indicted group members are suspected of giving the orders within the CCAT.

The constitutional amendment that would allow voters residing in New Caledonia for a minimum period of 10 years to take part in New Caledonia’s provincial elections, has been passed by both of France’s houses of Parliament (the Senate, on April 2 and the French National Assembly, on May 14).

But the text, which still requires a final vote from the French Congress (a joint sitting of both Houses), has now been “suspended” by President Macron, mainly due to his calling of the snap general election on June 30 and July 7.

Violent riots involving the burning, and looting of more than 600 businesses and 200 residential homes, erupted mainly in the capital Nouméa starting from May 13.

Nine people, including two French gendarmes, have died as a result of the violent clashes.

More than 7000 people are already believed to have lost their jobs for a total financial damage estimate now well over 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion) as a result of the unrest.

CCAT has consistently denied responsibility for the grave ongoing and violent civil unrest and Téin was featured on public television “calling for calm”.

Fresh clashes in Nouméa and outer islands
Meanwhile, there has been a new upsurge of violence and clashes in Nouméa and its surroundings, including the townships of Dumbéa (where about 30 rioters attempted to attack the local police station) and the neighbourhoods of Vallée-du-Tir, Magenta and Tuband, reports NC la 1ère TV.

On the outer island of Lifou (Loyalty Islands group, northeast of the main island), the airstrip was damaged and as a result, all Air Calédonie flights were cancelled.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, says the group is ready to accept an agreement that guarantees a permanent ceasefire.

He says it also wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, reconstruction, and an exchange deal, Al Jazeera reports.

Haniyeh said the group’s position was consistent with the foundational principles of the UN-backed ceasefire proposal.

• READ MORE: Israeli army ‘urgently needs’ more soldiers as Gaza killing continues
• Other War on Gaza reports

Haniyeh, speaking in a televised address on Eid day, also said Hamas was ready to accept an agreement that guaranteesd a permanent ceasefire, full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, reconstruction, and an exchange deal.

Palestinians would continue to show resilience, resistance, and commitment to their national struggle, he added in comments after US Secretary of State Blinken criticised Hamas last week for its reply to the ceasefire proposal.

Israel’s government has yet to publicly back the deal, despite US claims that it has accepted it.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to insist that the war would not end before Hamas is defeated.

Wider society ‘boiling over’
In light of Haniyeh’s comments, academic Dr Youcef Bouandel from Qatar University said disunity within Israel’s war cabinet and wider society was “boiling over” and “strengthening the hand” of Hamas in ceasefire negotiations.

Hamas political bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh talks to Al Jazeera.   Video: AJ

Meanwhile, an Israeli political analyst, Akiva Eldar, said Netanyahu was “leading them to the abyss” and Israel was becoming a growing “pariah” state.

Israel’s government was buckling not only from Israeli citizens demonstrating against it, but also from international pressure to end its war on Gaza, said Eldar.

On the world stage, Israel was increasingly becoming a pariah state while at home there were sustained protests calling for Netanyahu’s government to be removed.

“I travelled to Amsterdam and for the first time, I don’t feel comfortable to present my Israeli passport,” Eldar told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis are not welcome everywhere.”

In light of this growing tension, Eldar predicted the movement against Netanyahu’s government would come from the grassroots.

Former PM Barak calls for ‘1 million Israelis’
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak called to the Israelis to start protests, demonstrations around the Knesset, or Parliament, and he has calling for 1 million Israelis.

A Palestinian prisoners’ group has said that there are more than 9300 Palestinians remaining in Israeli prisons.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said that among the 9300 people held by Israel were at least 75 women and 250 children.

It has stressed that the total number did not include all the people Israel had detained in Gaza, estimated to be in the thousands.

Israeli prison authorities have announced the detention of 899 Palestinians from the besieged enclave under the classification of an “illegal fighter”, the group said.

In the early hours of November 22, Qatar formally announced that an agreement had been reached for an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives — and it came into force today.

The available details suggest it largely reflects the proposal offered by Hamas several weeks ago that was initially rejected by Israel.

Тhe announcement was made just a week after Israeli tanks and soldiers stormed into the al-Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City, causing international outrage.

• READ MORE: War on Gaza: Gaza truce begins
• The details of the truce between Israel and Hamas?
• Pro-Palestinian protesters blockade Port of Auckland, call for boycott of Israel shipments
• Pro-Israel UN vote splits Fiji’s governing coalition and upsets the army

Israel had claimed that there was a Hamas command centre there and repeatedly vowed to destroy it. As it happened, the only facility to be found within the compound was a hospital.

The United States fully supported Israel’s violation of al-Shifa’s sanctity and even claimed it had independent intelligence about a Palestinian Pentagon beneath it but produced no evidence in support of this assertion.

At the time, this led to speculation that these events may have been the product of an informal US-Israeli agreement: The Biden administration would support Israel’s seizure of al-Shifa and would cover for this war crime politically and diplomatically with lies of its own, thus allowing an Israeli military with few achievements since October 7 to have its “Iwo Jima moment” atop “Mount Shifa”.

But once it would become clear that there was nothing of military significance within the premises, the US would proceed to finalise a deal with Hamas and Israel would have to agree to its implementation.

Deal largely the Hamas offer
It does indeed appear to be the case that in exchange for US support for Israel’s systematic destruction of the health sector in the Gaza Strip, a deal with Hamas has been reached.

The agreement is significant in several respects. Perhaps most importantly, the US and Israel, which repeatedly vowed to eradicate Hamas, are now negotiating with the Palestinian movement and reaching agreements with it.

Qatari-Egyptian mediation, while indispensable, is ultimately a formality. The US and Israel are not negotiating with Egypt and Qatar but with Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and architect of the October 7 attacks.

The tenor of Israeli press reports in recent days has been that Hamas is desperate for a respite, however brief and at almost any price, from the ferocious Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip.

Yet the available reports about the deal suggest otherwise:

• Israel has committed to releasing three times as many imprisoned women and children as the Palestinians;
• No Israeli soldiers are included in the exchange;
• Significantly more humanitarian supplies, including fuel, will reach the Gaza Strip;
• The exchange of captives will be implemented during a continuous four-day truce rather than one in which the slaughter is paused for a brief period each day; and
• Israeli jets and drones will be prohibited from using the airspace over the Gaza Strip for several hours each day.

Why are so many Palestinians imprisoned?

This is quite close to the deal initially offered by Hamas several weeks ago, and it appears the bulk of its demands have been conceded by Israel and the US.

If the adage that negotiations reflect reality on the ground rather than overturning it applies, Hamas — in contrast to the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, which has been Israel’s main target — seems far from desperate.

Instead, it appears sufficiently confident to stick to its priorities until these are accepted by the US and Israel.

US, Israel forced to concede
“Pursuant to the agreement, Hamas has also forced the US and Israel to consent to the supply of large amounts of essential humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.

In other words, Hamas has in one fell swoop achieved exponentially more on the humanitarian front than the much-vaunted US diplomacy to secure humanitarian relief for Gaza’s Palestinian civilians during the past month.

This confirms that the entire US effort was in essence a circus — a diversionary charade to enable Israel to continue with its mass killings and transform the Gaza Strip into a wasteland and a killing field.

It bears repeating that Hamas has forced the US and Israel to allow significant quantities of food, water, medicine and fuel to reach the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

Yet Hamas is the anointed terrorist organisation in this equation while Israel is the light unto nations with the world’s most “moral army” and the US is the world’s greatest democracy dedicated to spreading freedom and human rights to the rest of the planet.

What happens next is difficult to assess. According to reports, only Israeli and dual nationals are to be released, presumably to help the Israeli leadership swallow this very bitter pill and to allay Israeli concerns that the release of foreign nationals would be privileged in negotiations with Hamas.

Yet by insisting on this formula, Israel has ensured that further negotiations to release foreign citizens would continue, potentially leading to an extension of the truce.

War in Israeli PM’s interests
At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the Israeli leadership can accept a temporary truce that metamorphoses into an indefinite one. It is clearly in the Israeli premier’s personal and political interest to keep this conflict going while the security establishment is also desperate to wipe away the stain of October 7.

Other members of Israel’s governing coalition partners see this war as a golden opportunity to unleash the apocalypse and want it to escalate further rather than wind down.

Although the Gaza Strip has been substantially destroyed, Hamas has yet to be significantly degraded, and the Israeli army has yet to kill more Hamas commanders than United Nations staff.

If Israel is confident it can once again flout US policy without consequences, it will. This could take the form of sabotaging the truce or resuming hostilities to ensure it is not extended. Farther afield, the Israeli-Lebanese front also seems to be rapidly heating up.

So further escalation is likely, but it is also possible that the implementation of this deal could cause Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to collapse under a combination of public pressure and internal conflicts among leaders who mutually detest and distrust each other.

The US leadership is also a question mark. With respect to the impact of this crisis on US interests in the region and beyond and particularly the question of regional escalation, US President Joe Biden appears not to care, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appears not to know while CIA Director William Burns and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin look mortified.

Which faction gains the upper hand remains an open question.

The one conclusion that can already be drawn is that the various “day after” scenarios produced by the Washington echo chamber can be safely discarded because they uniformly require the eradication of Hamas and not negotiated agreements with it.

Mouin Rabbani is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha, Qatar.

Fiji’s 2000 coup leader George Speight, who has been serving time in prison for more than 20 years, has applied for a presidential pardon so he can be released.

When questioned by Fijivillage News, Attorney-General and Chair of the Mercy Commission, Siromi Turaga confirmed that Speight had made an application and the consideration process was underway.

According to the 2013 Constitution, on the petition of any convicted person, the commission may recommend that the President exercise a power of mercy by granting a free or conditional pardon to a person convicted of an offence; remitting all or a part of a punishment.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji coup reports

The commission may dismiss a petition that it reasonably considers to be frivolous, vexatious or entirely without merit, but otherwise

• must consider a report on the case prepared by the judge who presided at the trial; or the Chief Justice, if a report cannot be obtained from the presiding judge;
• must consider any other information derived from the record of the case or elsewhere that is available to the Commission; and
• may consider the views of the victims of the offence.

The Constitution states that the President must act in accordance with the recommendations of the commission.

Fijivillage News has received information that the process has gone through the Fiji Corrections Service, the case management process for George Speight has been done through the judiciary, the commission has had its meeting and a decision is expected from President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere.

Next batch release?
Based on the processes followed under the Constitution, Speight could be released in the next batch of people to be given mercy by the President.

Speight was arrested and taken into custody on 26 July 2000.

In February 2002, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death — the sentence was later commuted to life in prison by the President.

George Speight led a small group of armed men to the Parliament complex in Veiuto on the morning of 19 May 2000, and seized then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government hostage.

The hostage crisis lasted for 56 days.

In 2020, the then Leader of Opposition, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu urged the President and the then government to also consider the release of prisoners like 2000 coup leader George Speight and Naitasiri high chief, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata.

When questioned by Fijivillage News, Ratu Naiqama said there were more than 3000 people that were charged and incarcerated in relation to the events of 2000, and all including George Speight should be released.

While speaking in Parliament at the time, Ratu Naiqama said this was not to create another coup but to take a step forward.

Vijay Narayan is news director of Fijivillage News. Republished with permission.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pleased that a Sydney magistrate jailed protester Deanna “Violet” Coco on Friday. But he is out of step with international and Australian human rights and climate change groups and activists, who have quickly mobilised to show solidarity.

On Monday, protests were held in Sydney, Canberra and Perth calling for the release of Coco who blocked one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for half an hour during a morning peak hour in April.

She climbed onto the roof of a truck holding a flare to draw attention to the global climate emergency and Australia’s lack of preparedness for bushfires. Three other members of the group Fireproof Australia, who have not been jailed, held a banner and glued themselves to the road.

• READ MORE: What Violet Coco’s jailing says about the Australian justice system – Crikey

Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges, including disrupting vehicles, possessing a flare distress signal in a public place and failing to comply with police direction.

Magistrate Allison Hawkins sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months and fined her $2500. Her lawyer Mark Davis has lodged an appeal which will be heard on March 2, 2023.

Unusually for a non-violent offender, Hawkins refused bail pending an appeal against the sentence. Davis, who will again apply for bail in the District Court next week, said refusal of bail pending appeal was “outrageous”.

Climate change protester sentenced to jail over Sydney Harbour Bridge protest. Video: News 24

‘People shouldn’t be jailed for peaceful protest’
In Sydney, about 100 protesters gathered outside NSW Parliament House and then marched to the Downing Centre. The crowd included members of climate action groups Extinction Rebellion, Knitting Nannas and Fireproof Australia but also others who, while they might not conduct a similar protest themselves, believe in the right of others to do so.

One of the protest organisers, Knitting Nanna Marie Flood, was unable to attend due to illness. Her message called for the release of Coco and an end to the criminalisation and intimidation of climate activists.

It was read by another Knitting Nanna, Eurydice Aroney:

“Nannas have been on Sydney streets protesting about gas and coal mines for about 8 years now. Over that time we’ve had lots of interactions with the Sydney Events police, and not a lot of trouble.

“You could say we are known to the police. We were amused and surprised at the recent climate emergency rally at town hall, when one of the police said to some Nannas that he thought we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd!

“Looks like we better clear some things up.”

“We ARE the crowd who knows that climate action is urgent and it starts with stopping new gas and coal. We know the importance of public protests to bringing about social and political change.

“We will stand up against any move to take away the democratic right to protest. What is happening to Violet Coco is a direct result of the actions of the NSW government with the support of the ALP opposition.”

The message ended with a call to all climate activists: “Now is the time to BE THE CROWD — we can’t afford to fall for attempts to divide the climate movement. We all want to save the climate, and to do that we need to protect democracy.”

The Knitting Nannas have launched a challenge to the validity of the protest laws through the Environmental Defenders’ Office.

Snap rally at NSW Parliament and a march to the courts at the Downing Centre where climate activist Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months in prison last week.

We demand repeal of the draconian anti-protest laws, an end to new fossil fuel projects and serious climate action now! pic.twitter.com/F1Yxs8L0DG

— Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) December 5, 2022

One of those attending the protest was Josh Pallas, president of NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Civil Liberties has been defending the right to protest in NSW for more than half a century.

In a media release, he said: “Peaceful protest should never result in jail time. It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers.

“Protesters from Fireproof Australia and other groups have engaged in peaceful protest in support of stronger action on climate change, a proposition that is widely supported by many Australians across the political divide and now finding themselves ending up in prison.

“Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”

Deputy Lord Mayor and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore told the crowd that they had the support of the City of Sydney which recently passed a unanimous motion calling for the repeal of the NSW government’s draconian anti-protest laws.

“If you are a group of businesses in the City of Sydney and you want to close the street for a street party, this state government will give you $50,000. If you are a non-violent protester who cares about climate change and you are blocking one lane of traffic for 25 minutes, they will give you two years [in jail].

“We know these laws are designed to intimidate you… Thank you for being the front line in the fight. you are the ones to put your bodies on the line to protest about issues we all care about, ” she said.

Amnesty International support for democracy
Amnesty International spokesperson Veronica Koman emphasised how important it was to see the defence of democratic rights from a regional perspective. She said that Amnesty was concerned that severe repression of pro-independence activists in West Papua was spreading across to other parts of Indonesia.

She fears the same pattern of increasing repression taking hold in NSW.

Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeil, who has won many awards for her journalism, was another person who was quick to respond.

“Outrageous. Climate activist who blocked traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge jailed for at least eight months” she tweeted on Friday.

Since then she has followed the issue closely, criticising the ABC for failing to quote a human rights source in its coverage of the court case and speaking at a protest in Perth on Monday.

Today she posted this tweet with a short campaigning #FreeVioletCoco video that has already attracted nearly 13,000 views:

Authorities in #Australia are disproportionately punishing climate activists in violation of their basic rights to peaceful protest

Violet Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison

Her crime? A peaceful protest that lasted 25 minutes#FreeVioletCoco @hrw pic.twitter.com/5qhyCWs2fk

— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) December 5, 2022

‘If you’re reading this, you’ll know I am in prison’
In jailing Coco, Magistrate Hawkins went out of her way to diminish and delegitimise her protest. She described it as a “childish stunt’ that let an “entire city suffer” through her “selfish emotional action”.

Coco has been involved with climate change protests for more than four years and has been arrested in several other protests. On one occasion, she set light to an empty pram outside Parliament House.

Rather than fight on technicalities, she chosen to plead guilty, knowing that if the magistrate was hostile, she could be taken into custody at the end of Friday’s hearing.

Several steps ahead of her critics, she made a video and wrote a long piece to be published if she went to prison.

The piece begins: ”If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change.”

She describes how her understanding of the facts of climate science and the inadequacy of the current response led her to decide to give up her studies and devote herself to actions that would draw attention to the climate emergency.

“Liberal political philosopher John Rawls asserted that a healthy democracy must have room for this kind of action. Especially in the face of such a threat as billions of lives lost and possibly the collapse of our liveable planet.

“But make no mistake — I do not want to be protesting. Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent. They refuse to feed me, refused to give me toilet paper and have threatened me with sexual violence.

“I spent three days in the remand centre, which is a disgusting place full of sad people. I do not enjoy breaking the law. I wish that there was another way to address this issue with the gravitas that it deserves.”

She describes how she has already been forced to comply with onerous bail conditions:

“I was under 24 hour curfew conditions for 20 days in a small apartment with no garden. After 20 days effectively under house arrest, my curfew hours changed — at first I could leave the house for only 5 hours a day for the following 58 days, then 6 hours a day under house arrest for the following 68 days.

“This totalled 2017 hours imprisoned in my home for non-violent political engagement in the prevention of many deaths. Cumulatively, that is 84 days or 12 weeks of my freedom.”

Premier Perrottet says he does not object to protest so long as it does not interfere with “our way of life”.

If it does, individuals should have the “book thrown at them.”

His “way of life” is one in which commuters are never held up in traffic by a protest while endlessly sitting in traffic because of governments’ poor transport planning.

A way of life in which it is fine for governments to take years to house people whose lives are destroyed by fires and floods induced by climate change, to allow people to risk death from heat because they cannot afford air conditioners, open more coal and gas operations that will increase carbon emissions and turn a blind eye to millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.

It involves only protesting when you have permission and in tightly policed zones where passers-by ignore you.

Labor still backs anti-protest laws
Leader of the Opposition Chris Minns also says he has no regrets for supporting the laws which he says were necessary to stop multiple protests.

But laws don’t target multiple actions, they target individuals. He has not raised his voice to condemn police harassment of individual activists even before they protest and bail conditions that breach democratic rights to freedom of assembly.

There was no visible Labor presence at Sydney’s rally.

Perrottet and Minns may be making right wing shock jocks happy but they are out of line with international principles of human rights.

They also fail to acknowledge that many of Australia’s most famous protest movements around land rights, apartheid, Green Bans, womens’ rights, prison reform and environment often involved actions that would have led to arrest under current anti-protest laws.

They display an ignorance of traditions of civil disobedience. As UNSW Professor Luke Macnamara told SBS News: “[V]isibility and disruption have long been the hallmarks of effective protest.”

He believes disruption and protest need to go hand in hand in order to result in tangible change.

“There’s an inherent contradiction in governments telling protesters what are acceptable, passive, non-disruptive means of engaging in protests, when the evidence may well be that those methods have been attempted and have proven to be ineffective,” he said.

“It’s not realistic on the one hand to support the so-called ‘right to protest’, and on the other hand, expect the protest has no disruptive effects. The two go together.”

Wendy Bacon was previously a professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and is an editorial board member of Pacific Journalism Review. She joined the protest. This article was first published by City Hub and is republished with the author’s permission.

Seven West Papuan makar — “treason” — convicts who were found guilty of raising the Morning Star flag were released on September 27 this year after completing their prison term of 10 months.

Until today, Papua activist and treason convict Melvin Yobe still does not know the result of his medical check-up at Dian Harapan Hospital earlier this year on February 16.

Maksimus Simon Petrus You also doesn’t know what punishment was given to the prison guard who brutally beat him.

• READ MORE: The full five-part article series at Tabloid Jubi [English-language version]
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five

Even more disturbing, however, is the fate of Zode Hilapok. He was unable to stand trial as his health continued to deteriorate due to tuberculosis. Zode Hilapok died while undergoing treatment at Yowari Regional General Hospital in Jayapura Regency on October 22.

Since detaining Zode Hilapok on December 2, 2021, law enforcement officials at all levels failed to provide adequate health services for his recovery and he was never put on trial.

Violating human rights
A law faculty lecturer at Cenderawasih University, Melkias Hetharia, says treason charges against Papuan activists violated human rights — namely the right to freedom of speech and expression. He argues the treason law enforced against Melvin Yobe and his seven friends was enacted by the Dutch colonial government to punish coups and revolutions and was based on the experience of the Russian revolution.

Hetharia told Jubi that the enforcement of the Dutch East Indies’ Criminal Code did not consider the social, cultural and philosophical aspects of the Indonesian nation.

“The formation of treason articles in the Criminal Code did not consider aspects of human rights, therefore it is oppressive and injures a sense of justice,” Hetharia said.

He said the term “treason” as regulated in articles 104, 106, 107, 108 and 110 of the Criminal Code had been interpreted very broadly and was not in line with the meaning of aanslag as intended in Dutch, which means “attack”. An attack in that sense was using full force in an attempt to seize power.

“If the term treason in the articles is interpreted not as aanslag or attack, then the articles on treason are indeed contrary to human rights guaranteed and protected in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia,” he said.

In fact, Melvin Yobe, Zode Hilapok, and their six friends are not the only Papuan activists who peacefully protested but have been charged with treason.

From 2013 to 2022, at least 44 Papuan activists have been charged with treason. Among them — from Jayapura District Court data — from 2013 to 2022 there were 31 people, while in Balikpapan District Court in 2020 seven people and in the Central Jakarta Court in 2019 six people.

Treason ‘structural criminalisation’
Emanuel Gobay, director of the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH Papua), who is also the legal counsel for Melvin Yobe and his friends, believes the treason charges against Papuan activists are part of a systematic and structural criminalisation.

“The majority of those accused of treason are human rights activists and political activists,” Gobay told Jubi.

Gobay said the Morning Star flag was a cultural symbol of the Papuan people. According to Gobay, these cultural symbols are guaranteed under Papua Special Autonomy Law No, 21/2001.

Gobay said the raising of the Morning Star by Melvin Yobe and other Papuan activists was part of the demand for the government to resolve Papua’s political problems.

“They are asking the state to immediately implement the Special Autonomy Law,” said Gobay.

On that basis, Gobay considered the use of the treason article against Papuan activists as a form of criminalisation. He also emphasised that the raising of the Morning Star flag did not automatically make Papua independent from Indonesia, therefore the element of treason was not fulfilled.

Apart from the controversy on the use of treason legal articles for Papuan activists, the discriminative treatment received by prisoners of treason cases is also inappropriate, argues Gobay.

Prisoners treated badly
Gobay, who often provides legal assistance to Papuan activists suspected or charged with treason, said his clients were often treated badly.

Zode Hilapok’s health condition was the worst of all, said Gobay. During his detention in Abepura Prison, Hilapok’s health condition deteriorated and he lost weight rapidly.

Gobay said Abepura Prison was not suitable for detainees with a history of tuberculosis, such as Melvin Yobe and Zode Hilapok.

“After we surveyed and compared the condition of the prison with the guidelines on handling tuberculosis patients, the prison is not suitable for accommodating prisoners with tuberculosis,” he said.

Minister of Health Regulation No. 67/2016 on Tuberculosis Patient Treatment Guideline states that the treatment centre for tuberculosis patients must be open and have good air circulation and sunlight.

Gobay said the regulation also stipulated that local health offices and hospitals provide special units to treat tuberculosis patients.

“We hope that judges, prosecutors, and hospitals can implement the regulation,” he said.

This report is supported by Transparency International Indonesia (TII), The European Union and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) in the Anticorruption Residency programme “Reporting Legal Journalism”. It is the final article in a five-part series in Tabloid Jubi and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Human rights campaigner Filep Karma, the most famous West Papuan former political prisoner, was found dead early today on a beach in the Melanesian region’s capital Jayapura.

His death has shocked Papuans and grassroots activist communities in Indonesia and around the Pacific.

“It is true that a body was found by a resident on the beach at Bse G, suspected to be Filep Karma, but to be sure, the police are still waiting for confirmation from his family,” North Jayapura police chief Police Adjunct Commissioner Yahya Rumra told Antara News.

• READ MORE: Filep Karma’s death as reported in Tabloid Jubi – Bahasa Indonesian
• Papuan activist dies in ‘apparent diving incident’ in Jayapura
• Other Filep Karma reports

The head of the Papuan Human Rights Commission, Frist Ramandey, confirmed Karma’s body had been found on the beach, reports CNN Indonesia.

However, he said his group was still investigating the circumstances of Karma’s death.

“He was a father figure for West Papuans and respected by many Indonesian people. He was gentle, loving, courageous, and full of wisdom,” said human rights lawyer Veronica Koman in a tweet.

“Grassroots are shaken.”

‘I’m crushed beyond words’
In a later tweet, she added: “We first met when I visited him in prison. We would spend days and days together when he visited Jakarta or I visited Jayapura.

“He laid the foundation of how I, as an Indonesian, view West Papua. He called me ‘child’ and I called him ‘father’.

“I’m crushed beyond words.”

Filep Karma, 63, led the raising of the Morning Star flag of independence — banned by Indonesian authorities — in Biak in 1998 and was eventually imprisoned.

He was released two years later.

In 2004, he again carried out a similar act and was accused of “treason”.

On that occasion he was jailed for 15 years but released in 2015.

Filep Karma, the most famous West Papuan ex political prisoner, was found dead on a beach in Jayapura this morning.

He was a father figure for West Papuans and respected by many Indonesian people. He was gentle, loving, courageous, and full of wisdom.

Grassroots are shaken. pic.twitter.com/GExI8EG4F6

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 1, 2022

Papuans Behind Bars website said Filep Karma was “undoubtedly the best-known political prisoner in West Papua”.

“Sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for the act of simply raising a flag . . . his release on 19 November 2015 was widely celebrated among Papuan civil society.”

The son of a prominent local politician, originally from Biak island, Karma studied political science in Java before working as a civil servant in Papua.

Indonesian police investigators at the beach scene in Jayapura where the body of Filep Karma was recovered today.  Video: Jack Caryota

Watch how fully armed paramilitary police officers approached this unarmed brave West Papuan man carrying the banned Morning Star flag. “Respect us! This is our father!” referring to the passing of Leader Filep Karma.

The man could face treason which carries life imprisonment. pic.twitter.com/TI7niKrZhp

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 1, 2022

Following the United Kingdom’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to face trial in the United States, the International Federation of Journalists’ (IFJ) Australian affiliate, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has called on the Australian government to take swift steps to lobby for the dismissal of all charges against Assange.

The IFJ stands with the MEAA in condemning the extradition order and calls for Assange to be pardoned and allowed to be with his family.

On June 17, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Assange’s extradition to the US to face charges, primarily under the nation’s Espionage Act, for releasing US government records that revealed the US military committed war crimes against civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the killing of two Reuters journalists.

• READ MORE:  UK government orders extradition of Julian Assange to US, but that isn’t end of the matter
• Other Julian Assange reports

Assange, a member of the MEAA since 2007, may now only have a slim chance of challenging the extradition.

If found guilty, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.

The WikiLeaks founder is highly likely to be detained in the US under conditions of isolation or solitary confinement, despite the US government’s assurances, which would severely exacerbate his risk of suicide.

WikiLeaks was awarded the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in 2011, an annual prize to reward excellence in Australian journalism, in recognition of the impact of WikiLeaks’ actions on public interest journalism by assisting whistleblowers to tell their stories.

According to the MEAA, Walkley judges said WikiLeaks applied new technology to”‘penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”.

Whistleblowers have since been used by other media outlets to expose global tax avoidance schemes, among other stories.

In the case of WikiLeaks, only Julian Assange faces charges, with no other WikiLeaks media partners cited in any US government legal actions.

In 2017, Chelsea Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst who released classified information to WikiLeaks, was pardoned by former US President Barack Obama.

MEAA media section federal president Karen Percy said: “We urge the new Australian government to act on Julian Assange’s behalf and lobby for his release. The actions of the US are a warning sign to journalists and whistleblowers everywhere and undermine the importance of uncovering wrongdoing.

“Our thoughts are with Julian and his family at this difficult time.”

The IFJ said: “The United Kingdom Home Secretary’s decision to allow the extradition of Julian Assange is a significant blow to media freedom and a dire threat to journalists, whistleblowers, and media workers worldwide.

“The IFJ urges the government of Australia to act swiftly to intervene and lobby the United States and United Kingdom governments to dismiss all charges against Assange. Journalism is not a crime.”

Last week on June 17 2022, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel issued a statement confirming she had approved the US government’s request to extradite Julian Assange.

The Australian founder of WikiLeaks faces 18 criminal charges of computer misuse and espionage.

This decision means Assange is one step closer to extradition, but has not yet reached the final stage in what has been a years-long process. Patel’s decision follows a March decision to deny leave to appeal by the UK Supreme Court, affirming the High Court decision that accepted assurances provided by the US government and concluded there were no remaining legal bars to Assange’s extradition.

• READ MORE: Julian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect
• A new book argues Julian Assange is being tortured. Will Australia’s new PM do anything about it?
• Other Julian Assange reports

The High Court decision overruled an earlier decision by a District Court that extraditing Assange to the US would be “unjust and oppressive” because the prison conditions he was likely to experience would make him a high risk for suicide.

In the High Court’s view, the American government’s assurances sufficiently reduced the risk.

Another appeal ahead
WikiLeaks has already announced Assange will appeal the home secretary’s decision in the UK courts. He can appeal on an issue of law or fact, but must obtain leave of the High Court to launch an appeal.

This is a fresh legal process rather than a continuation of the judicial stage of extradition that followed his arrest in 2019.

Assange’s brother has stated the appeal will include new information, including reports of plots to assassinate Assange.

Several legal issues argued before the District Court in 2020 are also likely to be raised in the next appeal. In particular, the District Court decided the question of whether the charges were political offences, and therefore not extraditable crimes, could only be considered by the home secretary.

BREAKING: UK Home Secretary approves extradition of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the US where he would face a 175 year sentence – A dark day for Press freedom and for British democracy
The decision will be appealedhttps://t.co/m1bX8STSr8 pic.twitter.com/5nWlxnWqO7

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 17, 2022

The question of whether and how the home secretary decided on this issue could now be ripe for argument.

Assange’s next appeal will also seek to re-litigate whether US government assurances regarding the prison conditions Assange will face are adequate or reliable. His lawyers will also again demand the UK courts consider the role of role of freedom of expression in determining whether to extradite Assange.

Assange will remain detained in Belmarsh prison while his appeal is underway. The decision of the High Court on his appeal against the home secretary’s decision may potentially be appealed to the Supreme Court.

If, after all legal avenues are exhausted in the UK, the order to extradite stands, Assange could take a human rights action to the European Court of Human Rights.

However, the European Court has rarely declared extradition to be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, except in cases involving the death penalty or whole-life sentences.

It has not yet considered freedom of expression in an extradition case.

Further appeals could add years more to the saga of Assange’s detention.

Responses from the Assange family and human rights advocates
Assange’s wife, Stella Moris, called Patel’s decision a ‘“travesty”. His brother Gabriel Shipton called it “shameful”. They have vowed to fight his extradition through every legal means available.

Julian Assange’s family respond to decision. Video: Reuters

According to the secretary-general of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard:

Assange faces a high risk of prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill treatment. Diplomatic assurances provided by the US that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history.

What role for the Australian government?
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus responded to the latest development last night. They confirmed Australia would continue to provide consular assistance to Assange:

The Australian government has been clear in our view that Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close. We will continue to express this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States.

However, it remains unclear exactly what form Australia’s diplomatic or political advocacy is taking.

In December 2021, Anthony Albanese said he could not see what purpose was served by the ongoing pursuit of Assange. He is a signatory to a petition to free Assange. Since he was sworn in as prime minister, though, Albanese has resisted calls to demand publicly that the US drop its criminal charges against Assange.

In contrast, Albanese recently made a public call for the release of Sean Turnell from prison in Myanmar.

In a way, Patel’s decision last week closes a window for stronger advocacy between Australia and the UK. While the matter sat with the UK Home Secretary, the Australian government might have sought to intervene with it as a political issue.

Now it seems possible Australia may revert to its long established position of non-interference in an ongoing court process.

Some commentators argue this is insufficient and that Australia must, finally, do more for Assange. Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie said it was high time Australia treated this as the political matter it is, and demand from its allies in London and Washington that the matter be brought to an end.

Barrister Greg Barns likened Assange’s situation to that of David Hicks, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay:

The Howard government at the time brought him back to Australia. This is not unprecedented. It is important that Australia is able to use the great relationship it has with Washington to ensure the safety of Australians.

These comments suggest that Australia ought to focus any advocacy towards the US government, making a case for the criminal charges and extradition request to be abandoned.

At this stage it is impossible to say if the Albanese government has the will to take a stronger stand on Assange’s liberty. The prime minister and foreign minister have certainly invested heavily in foreign relations in the early weeks of their government, with emphasis on the significance of the US alliance.

Perhaps strong advocacy on Assange’s behalf at this time might be regarded as unsettling and risky. The US has had plenty of opportunity, and its own change of government, and yet it has not changed its determination to prosecute Assange.

This is despite former President Barack Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who provided classified material to Assange for publication through Wikileaks.

Stronger Australian advocacy may well be negatively received. Assange’s supporters will continue to demand that Albanese act regardless, banking on the strength of the Australia-US alliance as capable of tolerating a point of disagreement.

Dr Holly Cullen is adjunct professor, The University of Western Australia and Amy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Justice and peace advocates in New Zealand have strongly criticised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “horrific crackdown” on community leaders, activists, and educators.

They have condemned in a statement published in Manila yesterday the arrest last September of Filipina educator and poet Lorena Sigua on a “trumped-up murder charge”.

The advocates of the Auckland Philippiness Solidarity (APS) say Sigua, who is also a community activist, had recently returned from a visit to New Zealand and was not in Mindanao at the time of the alleged killing of Filipino soldiers on 22 April 2018.

• READ MORE: ‘A cloud over Bukidnon forest’ – the Lumad indigenous rights struggle in Mindanao – David Robie
• Manila brands volunteer teachers as ‘terrorists’, say Lumad advocates

The campaigners say the crackdown is “reminiscent of [Duterte’s] infamous war on drugs“.

Writing in a letter to the editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, Helen Te Hira of APS, said: “It is outrageous that thousands have been unjustly arrested and brutally killed under Duterte’s drug war and war against community activists.

“Meanwhile those who are rich and close to power such as Kerwin Espinosa, a self-confessed drug dealer, will soon be free after the court dismissed drug trafficking charges against him.

“New Zealand indigenous rights advocates and community leaders were shocked to hear of the arrest of Lorena Sigua, a Filipino educator, poet, and community advocate on a trumped-up murder charge.

“Lorena was arrested on September 19, 2021, in Bulacan, Northern Luzon, and charged with murder for allegedly taking part in an attack by the New People’s Army [NPA] on members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines [AFP] on April 22, 2018, in Agusan del Sur, Mindanao.

Not in Mindanao
“But in fact, she was not in Mindanao at this time. Lorena returned to Manila after arriving back from New Zealand on April 6, 2018, and on the day of the alleged murder she was attending the indigenous festival “Cordillera Day” in Baguio, 1413 kilometers from Agusan.”

In 2018, Sigua took part in a speaking tour in Aotearoa New Zealand to discuss the situation of indigenous Lumad schools in Mindanao, Philippines.

Sigua spoke out strongly to New Zealand audiences in defence of the Lumad schools during her visit.

She met members of Parliament, representatives from the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), human rights advocates, members of the local Filipino community, Māori leaders, and students and staff at kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori and tertiary wānanga.

Te Hira wrote that kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori students and staff “enjoyed a rich dialogue with Lorena and the delegation as they exchanged experiences around the strategies that Māori and indigenous communities have adopted to build a national movement for language and cultural revitalisation”.

“We were particularly disturbed to learn of the routine harassment and state violence that our Lumad counterparts face for attempting to educate children in indigenous ways,” she said.

Te Hira described Sigua as a volunteer with the Education Development Institute in developing curriculum, books, and resources for Lumad schools in Mindanao.

Sigua was also a volunteer for students at the Lumad Bakwit School at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, a school set up for young people forced to leave their ancestral lands due to militarisation and human rights violations.

“Lorena’s bravery and commitment to quality education for indigenous communities resonate with the struggles of our people in the kura kaupapa movement,” Te Hira wrote.

“We call for immediate freedom for Lorena and all political prisoners who have been slapped with trumped-up charges.”

A United Nations expert has urged Indonesia to provide proper medical care to a Papuan independence activist to “keep him from dying in prison”, after reports emerged that his health had deteriorated, reports The Jakarta Post.

Victor Yeimo, 39, the international spokesman for the West Papua National Committee, was arrested in Jayapura in May.

He has been charged with treason and inciting violence and social unrest in relation to the pro-independence protests that swept the region for several weeks in 2019. Yeimo has denied the charges.

• READ MORE: Repression against ‘free Victor Yeimo’ protests in August 2021
• Indonesia shuts down internet during Yeimo trial hearings
• Other Victor Yeimo reports

His trial went ahead in August despite repeated requests from his lawyer for a delay on medical grounds.

“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.”

Political trial adjourned
The human rights watchdog TAPOL reports that Yeimo’s political trial was adjourned by the District Court of Jayapura on 31 August 2021 until he was declared physically fit by the hospital.

On the same day, the court also dismissed his pretrial motion, challenging his arrest and detention for violating criminal procedural law, on the grounds that the main trial had begun.

Victor Yeimo was finally hospitalised on August 30 despite the court having issued an order to hospitalise him since the evening of August 27.

The prosecutors defied the court’s order, which caused uproar among the public.

Dozens of people protested in front of the prosecutors’ office and their residence on August 28.

Hundreds of people protested again at the prosecutors’ office on August 30 before the prosecutors finally honoured the court order and took Yeimo to hospital.

Victor Yeimo’s health has been a concern since the beginning of his detention in May 2021.

Health deteriorated
His health deteriorated as he was placed in isolation and did not receive proper food or any medication.

Yeimo’s lawyers repeatedly asked that he be treated but were denied the request by the authorities. He was afforded only perfunctory medical tests on August 10 and 20.

During his first and second hearings, he told the court that he had never been told the results of these tests and had never been given any medicines or prescriptions.

He pleaded for help to the judges.

The prosecutors, having withheld the medical results stating that Victor Yeimo must be hospitalised, finally shared the medical results dated August 20 with Victor Yeimo’s lawyers on August 26.

On the same day, the court issued an order for Victor Yeimo to be treated at the hospital from 9 am to 6 pm the following day.

The prosecutors only appeared to take him to the hospital at 4 pm. At the hospital, Victor Yeimo pleaded to stay, but was dragged out by armed police despite still being on a drip.

At 11 pm, the court issued an order for Yeimo to be hospitalised.

Crackdown on peaceful protests
Peaceful protests demanding Victor Yeimo be released in seven cities across Indonesia during the period of 15 to 30 August 2021 were subjected to excessive use of force resulting in the death of protestor Ferianus Asso in Yahukimo, 104 arrests, and 40 people who were known to have been injured.

Those arrested have all been released. Internet freedom watchdogs found that the internet in Jayapura was shut down for three hours at around the time of Victor Yeimo’s trial.

Following TAPOL’s submission a week after Victor Yeimo’s arrest, the United Nations  Special Rapporteurs questioned the Indonesian government on the matter on June 30. The document was made public on August 31.

“We regret the government of Indonesia’s response which has distorted the facts. UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights Defenders, the Right to Freedom of Assembly, the Right to Health, and Anti-Racism yesterday have issued a press release calling for Indonesia to provide Victor Yeimo with ‘the basic care he so desperately needs’, said TAPOL.

“The UN experts also concluded that his prison conditions may have amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Given the gravity of the situation and the treason charges that Yeimo is facing, TAPOL said it would provide a summary of each of his trial sessions so that they could be properly and transparently monitored.

“We would encourage international organisations and interested experts to actively monitor his trial once it has been resumed,” TAPOL said.

Former Papuan political prisoner Filep Karma has also joined activists and Victor Yeimo’s family along with Yeimo’s lawyer who protested at the private residence of the Papua chief public prosecutor in the Doc 5 area of Jayapura city at the weekend, reports Suara Papua.

Karma revealed that he was shocked at the attitude of the public prosecutor who was still “showing his racism” towards Yeimo during their visit on Saturday.

The panel of judges at the Jayapura District Court hearing last Thursday, August 26, ordered the prosecutor to facilitate the defendant, who is accused of “treason”, being given healthcare — an up examination and inpatient care at a hospital.

• READ MORE: Indonesian court orders hospital treatment for Victor Yeimo
• Other Victor Yeimo reports

Just like before and despite being urged by several parties over the last two days following the court’s ruling, the chief public prosecutor has not demonstrated good faith, say critics.

When Yeimo was being examined by a medical team at the Jayapura pubic hospital on the evening of Friday, August 27, the prosecutor accompanied by security personnel put pressure on Yeimo not to be treated overnight.

He was then returned to the Papua regional police Mobile Brigade command headquarters detention centre where he has been detained since his arrest in May.

Yeimo’s lawyer, who is part of the Papua Law Enforcement and Human Rights Coalition (KPHHP), has already met all of the administrative requirements for Yeimo’s hospital treatment, including providing guarantors from the Papuan Regional House of Representatives (DPRP) — legislators John NR Gobai and Laurenzus Kadepa, as well as an advocate.

‘Long-winded lawsuits’
“Legal affairs in Indonesia are indeed like this, excessively long-winded,” he said.

“Indonesia does not regard life as important — procedures are more important than people’s lives.”

Karma said the prosecutor’s actions were “strange”, especially because ipso facto it was an an indigenous Papuan who had not heeded the order by the judges.

“Because the prosecutor is a Papuan, he’s afraid of being labeled as biased towards Papuan independence. So, he will try to show that he is more nationalist than the Javanese,” said Karma.

“Yet in the eyes of the Javanese, he’s ‘just a monkey’. I lived in Java for a long time, so I have felt this.”

Yeimo must be treated first because, according to Karma, a suspect and a defendant was guaranteed by law to receive treatment if they were ill.

“What we want this evening is for brother Victor Yeimo to be allowed to be treated in hospital. But this has not happened because of other considerations and they say they are following legal procedures,” he said.

‘Surrender to God’
Because of efforts to get Yeimo treated in hospital have not been carried out, Karma is calling on all Papuans to “surrender to God”.

“We will cool our passionate hearts, let us rise in hymn and prayer. Myself and all of us exist not just because of power, but rather because Jesus who lived before us, today and forever,” Karma said.

KPHHP litigation coordinator and Yeimo’s lawyer Emanuel Gobay believes that the Papua chief public prosecutor’s response to Gobai and Kadepa when he met with them at his private residence was different from the court’s ruling that his client receive inpatient treatment because his state of health had deteriorated while being detained at the Mobile Brigade detention centre.

“We have heard the chief public prosecutor’s response. If seen from the court’s ruling, there is difference in how it is seen,” he said.

“What the chief public prosecutor has conveyed proves that he does not respect the judges’ ruling at the Abepura Class IIA District Court.

“The public prosecutor has gone against the court’s order.”

Speaking in front of Yeimo’s family and activists gathered in front of the prosecutor’s home at 8am, Gobay said Yeimo’s lawyers would accompany him at the next hearing on Tuesday. His guarantors, Gobai and Kadepa would also attend the hearing.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. Slightly abridged due to repetition. The original title of the article was “Filep Karma Heran Jaksa Masih Hambat Victor Yeimo Dirawat”.

The panel of judges hearing the case against a West Papuan activist accused of treason have ordered the prosecution to prioritise the defendant’s health, reports Suara Papua.

At the second hearing on Thursday when the charges were supposed to be read out against West Papua National Committee (KNPB) international spokesperson Victor Yeimo, the judges ordered the prosecution to take him to a hospital for intensive treatment because of his deteriorating health.

The first and second court hearings this week were postponed because of Yeimo’s worrying state of health and because he was unable to attend the hearing.

• READ MORE: Treason trial of Victor Yeimo begins amid calls for his release
• Other Victor Yeimo articles

On Friday, Yeimo was taken to the Jayapura public hospital in Dok II for an examination and treatment.

John NR Gobay and Laurenzus Kadepan — two members of the Papua Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) — have declared that they are ready to stand as guarantors for Yeimo while he is being treated.

Papua Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) director Emanuel Gobay has also declared that he is ready to become a guarantor.

This was conveyed to the panel of judges at the Jayapura District Court on Thursday who subsequently granted the request.

Pressure from prosecutor
When contacted by Suara Papua on Friday, Gustaf Kawer, one of the members of Yeimo’s team of defence lawyers, revealed that after Yeimo had been taken to hospital there was pressure from the prosecutor who said Yeimo was not allowed to receive inpatient care.

“It is correct that Victor was taken to hospital earlier. But on the matter of inpatient care this is still being debated with the prosecutor because he doesn’t want Victor Yeimo to be treated at the Doc II hospital,” he told Suara Papua.

According to Kawer, there was a debate between Yeimo’s lawyers and the prosecutor at the hospital.

Yeimo and his lawyers wanted him to be treated at the hospital while the prosecutor did not.

Kawer said that the administrative requirements could be completed and would be handed over on Monday.

“What we are asking and urging is that Victor Yeimo’s health [be prioritised]. His state of health is not good,” Kawer aid.

‘He must be treated in hospital’
“He must be treated in a hospital. We already have the guarantors. The administrative requirements can be handed over on Monday. What we want is for Victor to be treated. Victor’s health is most important.”

A video received by Suara Papua on Friday evening shows Yeimo at the Dok II Jayapura hospital emergency unit. Several photographs received also show Yeimo being examined by a team of medics at the hospital.

Meanwhile, another video received by Suara Papua shows Yeimo debating with the authorities and the prosecutor who are insisting that Yeimo not be treated at the hospital.

Translated by James Balowski of IndoLeft News. Abridged slightly due to repetition. The original title of the article was “Victor Yeimo Dipaksa untuk Tidak Dirawat di Rumah Sakit”.

International pressure is mounting on Indonesia to free West Papuan activist Victor Yeimo, the international spokesperson for the peaceful civilian West Papua National Committee (KNPB), as concern grows over his worsening state of health.

Following the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor’s declaration on twitter two days ago that Yeimo was at risk of being infected with covid-19, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has written to Foreign Minister Marise Payne saying there was concern over his deteriorating health.

“He is losing weight and has been coughing blood for the past few days,” spokesman Joe Collins said in the letter today.

• READ MORE: Lawyer Veronica Koman joins calls to free Papuan activist Victor Yeimo
• Amnesty International Indonesia condemns arrest of 14 Papua university students
• Other Victor Yeimo reports

Amnesty International Indonesia has also raised concerns about Yeimo and about the arrest of 14 Cendrawasih University (Unicen) students who on Tuesday called for his release from Mako Brimob prison in the Papuan capital Jayapura.

Suara Papua reports that the KNPB on Monday urged the Papua regional police and the Papua chief public prosecutor to immediately release Yeimo because there was no legal basis for his detention and his health had been deteriorating since his arrest on May 9.

“For the sake of humanity and the authority of the Indonesian state, immediately release Victor Yeimo and all Papuan independence activists who have been arrested without [legal] grounds, evidence or witnesses,” said KNPB chairperson Agus Kossay in a media statement.

“The Papuan people are not the perpetrators of racism.”

‘Disturbing reports’
Lawlor’s twitter post the following day said: “I am hearing disturbing reports that human rights defender from #WestPapua, Victor Yeimo, is suffering from deteriorating health in prison. I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID-19.”

I am hearing disturbing reports that Human Rights Defender from #WestPapua, Victor Yeimo, is suffering from deteriorating health in prison. I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/q6Exq4LibE

— Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur HRDs (@MaryLawlorhrds) August 10, 2021

Yeimo faces a number of charges, including treason, because of his peaceful role in the anti-racism protests on 19 August 2019.

He is accused of violating Articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code on treason and conspiracy to commit treason.

Many analysts on West Papuan affairs consider these charges to be trumped up.

Amnesty International Indonesia deputy director Wirya Adiwena said that the students protesting for Yeimo should be protected — not arrested and treated like criminals.

“Like Victor, these Uncen students are only using their right to exercise freedom of expression, assembly and association, to peacefully speak their minds,” said Adiwena.

Against human rights
The jailing of peaceful activists because they had taken part in a demonstration was against their rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states,
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek receive and impart information and ideas though any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19).

Article 20(1) states that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman also called for the release of Yeimo.

“Victor Yeimo will not be safe if he remains behind [the bars] of a colonial prison. Colonialism will continue to demand political sacrifices,” wrote Koman on her Facebook.

Collins of AWPA said his movement was greatly concerned that by denying Yeimo proper adequate medical care, the Indonesian authorities were putting his him at “grave risk of death or other irreversible damage to his health”.

The AWPA called on Minister Payne “to use your good offices with the Indonesian government to call for the immediate and unconditional release of Victor Yeimo and all political prisoners”.

Lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman has spoken out about the worsening health of Papuan activist Victor Yeimo who has been detained at the Mobile Brigade command headquarters detention centre (Rutan Mako Brimob) for the last three months, reports Suara Papua.

“Victor Yeimo will not be safe if he remains behind [the bars] of a colonial prison. Colonialism will continue to demand political sacrifices,” wrote Koman on her Facebook on Monday.

Koman said that Yeimo’s imprisonment is part of the colonisation of the Papuan people’s dignity which had been going on for decades.

• READ MORE: Other Victor Yeimo reports

“The imprisonment of Victor is a problem of trampling on the West Papuan people’s dignity: The West Papuan people aren’t allowed to fight racism, the West Papuan people aren’t allowed to speak about self-determination — even in a peaceful manner,” she wrote.

Koman believes that moving Yeimo, who is in a weak condition, to Abepura prison is the same as moving him from one “tiger’s den” to another.

“The Abepura prison is over-capacity, so it’s a nest of covid-19. Because of this, [we must] unite in the demand: Release Victor Yeimo right now!” said Koman.

Yeimo, who is the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) international spokesperson and spokesperson for the Papua People’s Petition (PRP), was arrested by police in the Tanah Hitam area of Abepura in Jayapura city on May 9.

He was detained at the Papua regional police headquarters before being transferred to the Brimob detention centre.

Since his arrest there have been ongoing calls for his release from the charges against him. The charges and lack of access to lawyers and family are considered not to be in accordance with the law.

Because of this, the government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is being urged to immediately release Yeimo along with all Papuan students and people from prisons in Indonesia.

“Victor Yeimo is not the perpetrator of racism. He is in fact a victim of racism. He was not involved in the [August-September 2019] riots in Jayapura city.

“Why after three months is he still being held at the Papua Brimob? His health is deteriorating. We are asking that he be released immediately from prison,” said Sam Gobay, who is on the management board of the Mee ethnic group traditional council in Mimika regency.

From information received by Gobay, Yeimo’s health had deteriorated drastically.

“There is no access to healthcare for Victor Yeimo. He’s ill, he’s not being allowed treatment. He also isn’t being given food. All access is restricted.

“What is the plan for Victor Yeimo? We’re asking for Victor’s immediate release”, he said.

The arrest of detention of Yeimo is seen as part of curbing democratic space and even an effort to criminalise Papuan activists.

“What kind of legal basis is there for the state to discriminate against Victor Yeimo. He is not a perpetrator of racism, let alone labeling him as committing makar [treason, rebellion, sedition].

“Everyone knows that Victor Yeimo was not involved in the demonstrations which ended in riots in Jayapura city,” said Gobay.

“The Papuan people are urging Bapak [Mr] Jokowi to immediately urge the Indonesian police chief and the Papuan regional police chief to release Victor Yeimo from the Brimob detention centre,” said Gobay.

A similar statement was made by KNPB general chairperson Agus Kossay in a press release on Monday.

The KNPB is urging the Papuan regional police and the Papua chief public prosecutor to immediately release Yeimo. According to Kossay, Yeimo had been detained without legal basis and his health continued to deteriorate.

“For the sake of humanity and the authority of the Indonesian state, immediately release Victor Yeimo and all Papuan independence activists who have been arrested without [legal] grounds, evidence or witnesses. The Papuan people are not the perpetrators of racism,” said Kossay.

KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap, meanwhile, said that if Yeimo was not released then the KNPB would call on all Papuan people and all KNPB activists to get themselves arrested by police.

He also believes that the Papua regional police and the prosecutor’s office have violated Indonesian law.

“Victor Yeimo must be released for the sake of the law because based on the KUHP [Criminal Code] the 60 day period of detention has already passed, but the addition of 30 more days detention for Victor Yeimo violates the law itself,” said Suhuniap.

Earlier, Yeimo’s lawyer Emanuel Gobay, who is from the Papua Law Enforcement and Human Rights Coalition (KPHHP), urged the Papuan and Jayapura chief prosecutors to respond to their call to transfer Yeimo from the Brimob detention centre to Abepura prison.

This call, according to Gobay, is based on the fact that Yeimo had been incarcerated at the Brimob detention centre since May 10 and his rights as a suspect had not been met.

“When the prosecutor questioned Victor Yeimo in relation to matters that he wished to convey, Victor asked to be transferred from the Rutan Mako Brimob to the Abepura prison in consideration of meeting his rights as a suspect.

“Victor argued that since the start of his detention at the Papua regional police Mako Brimob he has been neglected because of the Mako Brimob’s standard operating procedures. Also because of his psychological condition as a result of being left alone in a stuffy cell which could endanger his health,” explained Gobay.

Unfortunately, said the director of the Papua Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), the prosecutor failed to respond professionally to Yeimo’s request.

“The Papua chief public prosecutor [must] immediately instruct the Papua chief public prosecutor supervising prosecutor acting as the Jayapura chief public prosecutor supervising prosecutor to examine the prosecutor who received the dossier of the suspect in the name of Victor F Yeimo which was not conducted in accordance with the instructions of Article 8 Paragraph (3) b of Law Number 8/1981,” he said.

Also, the head of the Papua representative office of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia has been asked to supervise the Jayapura district attorney’s office in its implementation of Yeimo’s rights as a suspect which is guaranteed under Law Number 8/1981.

This call was made after the Papua regional police investigators handed Yeimo’s dossier over to the Jayapura district attorney’s office on August 6.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. Abridged slightly due to repetition and for clarity. The original title of the article was “Ini Pendapat Veronica Koman Terhadap Kondisi Victor Yeimo”.

British and Indonesian human rights defender Carmel Budiardjo, founder of TAPOL watchdog and the movement’s driving force for many decades, has died peacefully aged 96.

TAPOL said in an announcement that she had died on Saturday and would be greatly missed by an extensive network of people whose lives had been “touched — and sometimes transformed — by her passionate and determined campaigning for human rights, justice and democracy in Indonesia, East Timor, Aceh and West Papua”.

For many, she had been a great mentor as well as a beloved friend, TAPOL said.

• WATCH: Carmel Burdiadjo and the story of TAPOL
• Surviving Indonesia’s Gulag: A Western Woman Tells Her Story
• Carmel Budiardjo: rights defender who shone a light on Papua

TAPOL stands for “tahanan politik” or “political prisoners” in Indonesian.

Budiardjo, a British citizen then living in Indonesia, was imprisoned without trial by Indonesian authorities following former President Suharto’s rise to power in 1965.

An Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Budiardjo was released after three years’ imprisonment and she returned to the UK.

In 1973, she founded TAPOL to campaign for the release of the tens of thousands of political prisoners following the 1965 atrocities by the Suharto regime and in support of the relatives of the hundreds of thousands who were killed.

Raised awareness of atrocities
Budiardjo was determined to raise international awareness about those atrocities and injustices in which many Western countries, including the UK, were “complicit in their attempts to halt what they saw as the rise of communism”.

Over the next three decades, TAPOL’s work broadened to encompass wider issues of human rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia, including in Aceh, East Timor and the contested Melanesian territory of West Papua.

“Wherever possible, and despite the extreme repression of the New Order regime, we built close relationships and collaboration with the very brave human rights defenders and pro-democracy campaigners there,” said TAPOL.

In 1995, Budiardjo received the Right Livelihood Award, after being nominated by the International Federation for East Timor.

With awareness growing also of the environmental damage being wrought by the regime on nature and local communities, in 1988 Budiardjo helped set up a sister organisation, Down to Earth, to fight for ecological justice.

Later, in 2007, Budiardjo and TAPOL were also founder members of the London Mining Network, established to support communities harmed by London-based mining companies.

“As Indonesia became more democratic during the 2000s, we increasingly turned our attention to the region of West Papua. There, human rights violations have continued, largely out-of-sight and un-discussed within Indonesia as well as internationally,” said TAPOL.

John Rumbiak Award
For TAPOL’s international work on West Papua, Budiardjo also received the John Rumbiak Human Rights Defender Award and was honoured as an “Eldest Daughter of Papua” by leaders of West Papuan civil society in 2011.

TAPOL is still today very much as Budiardjo set it up — a small organisation/network of committed staff, volunteers and collaborators, all aiming for a big impact.

“We remain committed to her ideals of promoting justice and equality across Indonesia, and are deeply grateful for all that she contributed and taught us,” the TAPOL statement said.

“Our thoughts and sincere condolences for this huge, sad loss go to Carmel’s family in particular, but also to all those across the globe who knew and loved her.”

New Zealand Labour MP Louisa Wall has accused China of harvesting organs from political prisoners among the Uyghur and Falun Gong populations.

The MP, who is part of a global network of politicians monitoring the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), also says her own government needs to do more to counter what she calls the slave labour trade in China.

“Forced organ harvesting is occurring to service a global market where people are wanting hearts, lungs, eyes, skin,” Wall said.

• READ MORE: The Red Line series
• NZ risks giving China ‘coercive power’ over economy – US General
• Chinese Communist Party spies in NZ universities, lecturers suspect
• Young Uyghur living in NZ fears his family could be in XinJiang concentration camp
• Merry Xmas Mr Key – your friend, President Xi

China expert Professor Anne-Marie Brady of the University of Canterbury, describes the New Zealand government’s political strategy on China as something close to a cone of silence.

“Our MPs seem to have a pact that they’re not allowed to say anything at all critical of the CCP and barely mention the word China in any kind of negative terms.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta refused to do interviews for the new Red Line podcast, which examines the influence of the CCP in New Zealand.

But Wall has broken ranks.

‘Used as slaves’
“I’m concerned that there appears to be a million Uyghurs being imprisoned in what they call education camps, but essentially, used as slaves to pick cotton.”

Wall, along with National’s Simon O’Connor, is one of two New Zealand MPs in the International Parliamentary Alliance on China, a network of more than 200 politicians from 20 parliaments, set up to monitor the actions of the CCP.

She thinks New Zealand should be doing much more to counter the slave labour trade from Xinjiang, in the north west of China.

“What the UK and Canada have done is they’ve got modern slavery acts and they want to ensure the corporates who are taking those raw materials, actually ensure that the production of those raw materials complies with the modern slavery act. I like that mechanism.”

She says the government also needs to pass new laws to stop New Zealanders getting organ transplants sourced from China or from any country that cannot verify the integrity of its organ donor programme.

China sources some organs from political prisoners, she said.

“The Uyghur population, and also the Falun Gong population, both have been designated as prisoners of conscience,” she said. “We know that they are slaves. We also know that they’re being used to harvest organs.”

Tribunal finding
She bases that on findings from a recent independent tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, a British QC, who previously worked with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

His 600-page report, called the China Tribunal, says the killing of political prisoners for organ transplants is continuing in China and that many people have died “indescribably hideous deaths” in the process.

“Based on a report from Lord Justice Nice from the UK, we now know that forced organ harvesting is occurring to service a global market where people are wanting hearts, lungs, eyes, skin,” Wall said.

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand ignored requests to talk about this issue.

China announced back in 2014 that it would no longer remove organs from executed prisoners and when the China Tribunal report was released in 2018 the CCP dismissed it as inaccurate and politically motivated.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• The RNZ Red Line series

West Papuans are facing the start of 2021 with sorrowful news about the death of Mispo Gwijangge, a victim of accusations and torture over alleged crimes he did not commit.

Some human rights advocates and lawyers, including Amnesty International Indonesia, have expressed their condolences for his death in Wamena on January 6, reports Tabloid Jubi.

Amnesty International Indonesia says Gwijangge was charged over the killing of 17 PT Istaka Karya workers in Nduga at the end of 2018.

• READ MORE: West Papua churches call on Widodo to end militarisation

The Papua Advocacy Team found a number of irregularities in the case.

Gwijangge, who was not fluent in the Indonesian language, explained through the help of an interpreter that he did not commit the murders he was accused of.

He said he was in a refugee camp in Wamena when the murder of PT Istaka Karya took place on December 2, 2018. Gwijangge was sentenced to death, even though he was still under age, who should not have been given a death sentence, say advocates.

Amnesty International Indonesia turut berduka cita sedalam-dalamnya atas kepergian Mispo Gwijangge, orang asli Papua korban penyiksaan dan rekayasa kasus pembunuhan di Nduga tahun 2018. pic.twitter.com/DPg2SMp1rS

— Amnesty International Indonesia (@amnestyindo) January 7, 2021

Michel Himan, one of Gwijangge’s defence lawyers who handled the case, while expressing his deep condolences, said that Gwijangge had been arrested on 12 May 2018. He was only 14 years old when he was detained at the Jayawijaya police headquarters.

In prison cell for 333 days
For 333 days, he remained in a prison cell and was often tortured.

Himan said that without the knowledge of his family Gwijangge had been transferred to Jakarta for “security reasons”, while the trial of another case at the same time went smoothly.

Gwijangge was forced to accept this unjust legal process. He had never committed the murder, say advocates.

Himan, who is known as a prominent young lawyer from Papua in the Indonesian capital, recalls his conversation with Gwijangge at Salemba prison in Jakarta.

“Mispo said, ‘I never went to school. I can’t read and write and have never been out of town, always live in the village, I’ve never been involved as alleged, I don’t know anything.’

“’I just wanted to go home because no one takes care of my mum. My mum is alone in the jungle [temporary refugee camp], Mispo told Himan while staring at the clouds.

“My head is dizzy, and I am worried about my mother, I just wanted to get back to Papua as soon as possilble,” Himan recalls about what Gwijangge told him.

Pneumonia, back pain
Gwijangge was badly sick with pneumonia and back pain as a result of the torture he had received.

“We were all worried about his situation at that time. We have done our best to help him for the sake of healing,” said Himan.

Tabloid Jubi reports that according to Mispo’s older sister with initials DG, Gwijangge had still been traumatised after being arrested in the middle of last year. He was accused of being involved in the murder of dozens of Trans Papuan Highway workers in Nduga regency in early December 2018.

“He didn’t want to take medication. He was worried that someone would try to find fault with him, and then he would be arrested again,” said DG.

Gwijangge’s family decided to take care of him from home.

Nduga refugees volunteer Raga Kogeya said it was natural that Mispo Gwijangge had still been traumatised. The youth had been arrested and accused of crimes he did not commit.

At that time, the threat was the maximum of a death penalty.

Luckily, the panel of judges at the Central Jakarta District Court, who tried the Gwijangge case, rejected all of the charges against him by the public prosecutor.

The judges were willing to consider various irregularities presented by Gwijangge’s legal team. Finally, they decided to drop the prosecution and to free him from detention.

This report has been compiled by a special Pacific Media Watch correspondent. Tabloid Jubi articles are republished with permission.

A court in East Kalimantan has found seven Papuans guilty of treason in separate trials for their involvement in antiracism protests in Jayapura, Papua, in 2019, despite calls from human rights defenders for authorities to drop all charges against them.

The Balikpapan District Court sentenced Buchtar Tabuni, an executive of pro-Papuan independence group United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), yesterday to 11 months of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Cenderawasih University student union head Ferry Kombo, as well as Irwanus Uropmabin and Hengki Hilapok, both students of the University of Science and Technology (USTJ), were sentenced to 10 months in prison.

READ MORE: Indonesian court issues guilty verdicts in West Papua trial

The punishment handed down by the court was far from the demands of prosecutors, who sought 17 years of imprisonment for Buchtar, 10 years for Ferry and 5 years for both Irwanus and Hengki.

Two other defendants in the case, namely Agus Kossay and Stevanus Itlay from the National Committee of West Papua (KNPB), were sentenced to 11 months of imprisonment after prosecutors had demanded 15 years.

Meanwhile, USTJ student union head Alexander Gobai was sentenced to 10 months in prison. The prosecutors had sought 10 years of imprisonment for him.

“We are given a week to think about whether we will file an appeal or not. We will discuss further with the seven political prisoners and figure out if they can accept [the verdicts],” Emanuel Gobay, one of the defence lawyers, told The Jakarta Post.

West Papua Uprising
The seven students and activists were involved in Jayapura protests widely known as the Papua Uprising in August last year following a racially charged incident targeting Papuan university students living in a dormitory in Surabaya, East Java.

“Your Excellencies, it’s not that I am objecting the 11 months sentence, but my consience says that I am innocent,” said Buchtar Tabuni.

He was not involved on the West Papua Uprising last year at all due to different political opinion. pic.twitter.com/2n2EuxKoSo

— Veronica Koman (@VeronicaKoman) June 17, 2020

The students were physically and verbally attacked by security personnel and members of local mass organisations, who accused them of refusing to celebrate Indonesia’s 74th Independence Day.

Security personnel reportedly banged on the dormitory’s door while shouting insults like “monkeys”, “pigs” and “dogs”.

Jayapura, West Papua today (17/6/20) pic.twitter.com/BC82P3yp2F

— Veronica Koman (@VeronicaKoman) June 17, 2020

The protests in Jayapura started out peacefully but later turned violent, resulting in dozens of injuries and several buildings being damaged. The seven activists were arrested in Jayapura and were moved for trials in Balikpapan earlier this year for security reasons.

The trials have been met with an outcry from the public and from activists, with many demanding that authorities drop all charges, as they argued that the Papuans involved in the rallies had only been exercising their right to protest over racism against them.

Over the past three days prior to the verdicts scheduled for Wednesday, rallies carried out by students and young people demanding the defendants’ release took place in various cities across the country.

Human rights activists have lambasted the arrests and charges against the Papuans, saying that acts of treason and reactions against racism were two different things.

They also argued that perpetrators of racism against Papuans, including hoax spreaders and verbal attackers, had been charged with less than a year of imprisonment.

‘Racism under justice system’
“Despite the leniency, the verdicts still reflect racism under Indonesia’s justice system. No matter what happens, West Papuans ‘must’ be found guilty by Indonesian courts, especially in treason and incitement cases,” Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman said on her Twitter account.

Koman told the Post that, during the antiracism protests last year, 86 Papuans were arrested and charged with treason. Some were immediately released, leaving 56 to be processed legally.

Some of the 56 Papuans have been sentenced to prison and recently been released, including Surya Anta and Ariana Elopere, who were spotted among the crowd during Monday’s rally in front of the Supreme Court building in Central Jakarta.

“There was no political intervention, because those who are now released have fully served their sentences,” Koman said, adding that 23 of 36 Papuans still being detained would face their first hearing in Fakfak, West Papua, later this week.

Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said he deeply regretted the court rulings against the seven Papuans engaging in peaceful protests, arguing that such a decision showed that the state failed to uphold human rights for Papua.

“Although the verdicts were much lighter than the demand of prosecutors, the seven prisoners of conscience should not have been arrested, imprisoned and prosecuted from the start.

“They should be released will all charges dropped,” Usman said in a statement.

“In the era of president BJ Habibie, East Timorese political prisoners or prisoners of conscience were released. President Jokowi himself even freed five Papuan prisoners of conscience at the beginning of his first term,” he said.

Host Sherry Zhang interviewed veteran Pacific affairs journalist Michael Field who broke last week’s story on the secret BDO New Zealand accountancy report into allegations of funding rorts at the regional University of the South Pacific today on the Southern Cross segment of 95bFM.

Field also spoke about the hounding of suspended vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia, the whistleblower who revealed the mismanagement of funds at the university.

In a Pacific Media Centre commentary today, director Professor David Robie, an alumni of USP, analysed the fight to save academic freedom at the university.

LISTEN: Today’s Southern Cross on 95bFM

Contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi spoke about #PapuanLivesMatter in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

He talked of Filep Karma, a former political prisoner who revealed Joko Widodo’s unkept promise to free all Papua political prisoners made five years ago.

West Papua is of high economic value to Indonesia because of the Freeport gold and copper mine and the palm oil and logging industries.

Also discussed was the Polynesian Panthers who came into being in June 1971 when protested for Pasifika rights, especially during the Dawn Raids in 1973.

One of the original five Polynesian Panthers was Will ‘Ilolahia, who was arrested for helping organise the protests. He spoke at the Auckland Black Lives Matter rally yesterday and it is hoped he will feature in next Monday’s Southern Cross.

Thousands throng Auckland for NZ Black Lives Matter protests

Former Papuan political prisoner Filep Karma says President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo promised to release Papuan political prisoners during his administration.

Widodo made this pledge, said Karma, to five of his fellow political prisoners in Jayapura, Papua, who were released in 2015, reports CNN Indonesia.

“When the Bapak [Mr] president released my five friends from prison in Jayapura, he told them, this is reconciliation and I will free all political prisoners,” said Karma, as quoted on the UK human rights group Tapol’s YouTube account on Friday.

READ MORE: Papuans Behind Bars – the facts

Now however, he said, the number of Papuan political prisoners had instead grown to 46 who were to this day still incarcerated in jail.

Karma said that he had personally made a request for their release with Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly. At the time, Karma asked Laoly to release four Papuan political prisoners who were incarcerated at the Nusa Kambangan penitentiary.

“He said that he would try to get them transferred from Nusa Kambangan to Ambon [North Maluku] and try to get them released. But to this day the four are still in prison,” he said.

Karma related how in Papua, a person could be arrested over free expression. They would be taken by the police to jail, detained and sentenced for years.

This, he said, began to improve when the international community put pressure on Indonesia and provided support to his group.

Later, however, Karma suspects that Indonesia has returned to handing out long sentences to Papuan political prisoners.

Voicing an opinion without suffering violence is not an easy thing for a Papuan person to do, he said. He claims to have once submitted a request for a permit to police to hold a Kamisan (Thursday) action in Papua, but it was rejected by the police.

Charged with treason
In February, seven Papuans were arrested and charged with makar (treason, subversion, rebellion) – Hengki Hilapok, Alexsander Gobai, Steven Itlay, Bucthar Tabuni, Irwanus Uropmabi, Fery Kombo and Agus Kossay.

All of them are being tried at the Balikpapan District Court in East Kalimantan on charges related to their alleged involvement in riots in Papua in late 2019.

In September 2015, President Widodo visited the Abepura Penitentiary in Kamkey, Kota Baru sub-district, Abepura.

There, he personally presented a letter of agreement granting clemency to five Papuan political prisoners. The five political prisoners who were released were Apotnalogolik Lokobal (sentenced to 20 years in prison), Numbungga Telenggen (life imprisonment), Kimanus Wenda (19 years in prison), Linus Hiluka (19 years) and Jefrai Murib (life imprisonment).

“On this day we have released five people, this is a whole-hearted effort by the government in the context of ending the stigma of conflict that exists in Papua,” said Widodo in his greetings as quoted in a release by the Cabinet Secretariat.

The president asserted that the clemency was an initial step in developing Papua without conflict.

“This is an initial [step], later after this it will be followed up by giving clemency or amnesty to other [prisoners] because there are around 90 people who are still in prison. Once again this is an initial start to the release [of prisoners],” said Widodo.

Discrimination towards Papuans
A human rights lawyer in Jayapura, Anum Siregar, believes that the government is discriminative and takes a different position towards Papuan people and other Indonesian citizens.

He said Papuans were easily arrested and charged with makar just because they flew the Morning Star independence flat or voiced their views. In one such case, those who were arrested were investigated without a lawyer and beaten.

“Meanwhile in Jakarta, people who talk about overthrowing the government, creating a new Parliament, a new country, are still not tried. There is discrimination between what happens in Papua and Jakarta,” he said.

Siregar said that repressive actions by the government would only worsen the situation in Papua. By continuing to arrest and detain political prisoners, he said, the government would instead create a greater desire for Papuan independence.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft. The original title of the article was “Filep Karma Ungkap Janji Presiden Bebaskan Tapol Papua.”

TAPOL has condemned the political decision to cancel the early release of five political prisoners that were arrested in Jakarta for demonstrating in favour of self-determination of West Papua.

On April 24, the Central Court of Jakarta sentenced Paulus Suryanta Ginting, Ambrosius Mulait, Dano Tabuni, Charles Kossay and Ariana Elopere to nine months’ imprisonment; while Isay Wenda was sentenced to eight months.

A sixth prisoner – and they were known as the Jakarta Six – Isay Wenda was released last month on April 29 having served his full sentence, the human rights watchdog reports.

READ MORE: Jailing of Jakarta Six fuels virus fears over Papuan political prisoners

The Ministry of Law and Human Rights implemented a new policy on prisoners as a result of the covid-19 pandemic in early April, making provisions for the conditional release or assimilation of those who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences.

The remaining five political prisoners have to date served eight months and 12 days of their sentences.

Suryanta, Ambrosius Mulait, Dano Tabuni, and Charles Kossay are currently detained in Salemba Detention Center. Ariana Elopere is detained at Pondok Bambu Detention Center where 24 prisoners have tested positive for covid-19.

On Monday afternoon, the five remaining prisoners signed “letters of execution of sentences” and in the evening, guarantors signed “letters of assimilation”. The guarantor for Suryanta, Dano Tabuni and Ambrosius Mulait is the priest Suarbudaya Rahadian. The guarantor for Charles Kossay is his sister Sati Kossay.

Yesterday, at midday, they signed letters confirming assimilation release, tested negative for covid-19 and were given rice and instant noodles by the detention centre to take home.

After these preliminary steps which should have preceded their release, they waited a further 30 minutes and were then summoned by the Head of Registration of Salemba’s Detention Centre. He relayed to the prisoners that a political intervention from the central government had resulted in their planned release being cancelled.

The Jakarta Five will now serve out their full sentences before being freed on May 26.

The jailing of the Jakarta Six – five Papuans and the first Indonesian to be convicted for a Papuan protest – in Indonesia last month has focused global attention on the plight of political prisoners in the face of a failing struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.

Already several analysts are warning that both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are at risk of becoming coronavirus “failed states” and this will be of concern to Australia and New Zealand.

While Papua New Guinea has had only eight confirmed covid-19 cases so far – a spike is expected this month in spite of the state of emergency, Indonesia already has 10,843 cases with 831 deaths and the real toll is feared to be higher and climbing.

READ MORE: Tough coronavirus controls threaten Pacific, global media freedom

In Indonesia’s two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, the figures are reportedly 189 and 37 respectively with seven deaths overall and a new surge reported in the Mimika mining hub. Remote tribespeople have taken to setting up their own blockades to protect their villages.

“Countries with pre-existing conditions — poverty, limited healthcare, ineffective or corrupt governments — are fragile, and it is these countries that covid-19 is threatening to push to the brink of survival,” writes ABC’s foreign affairs correspondent Melissa Clarke.

She acknowledges those critics who suggest the United States has made a “solid start” for gaining such a dubious status, “but for the Australian government, the real concerns lie just to the north – Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.”

Human rights advocates and civil society groups are voicing their condemnation of Papuans  being held in crowded and risky Indonesian jails for taking part in peaceful demonstrations and a “Free West Papuan political prisoners” campaign has gone viral on social media.

Political prisoners still held
ETAN – East Timor and Indonesian Action Network, founded in 1991 and one of the most active US non-profit groups campaigning for human rights across Southeast Asia and Oceania, says that while Indonesia “struggles to contain the spread of covid-19”, the government still holds anti-racism and pro-independence prisoners in jails across West Papua, Jakarta and Balikpapan.

“In many cases, trials have continued against these political prisoners endangering the health of the prisoners, lawyers, judges and court staff,” ETAN says.

An urgent appeal to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and UN Special Rapporteurs was filed last month by advocate Jennifer Robinson and Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman, backed by the human rights organisation Tapol, on behalf of 63 political prisoners.

The legal papers demonstrate that all of the detainees are being “arbitrarily and unlawfully detained in violation of Indonesia’s international human rights obligations”.

The prisoners are 56 indigenous West Papuans, five Moluccans, One Indonesia, and one Polish citizen.

“While most of them are on remand and still awaiting trial, seven have been sentenced and others are currently on trials,” says Tapol.

“The great majority of the political prisoners – 56 – were arrested in the crackdown by Indonesian authorities during the mass political protest movement in support of West Papua last year – dubbed the “West Papua Uprising”.

Carrying, displaying flags
“The activities for which they have been detained range from simply carrying or displaying the West Papuan or Moluccan national flags, to participation in peaceful protests and being members of political organisations which support self-determination – all internationally protected activities.”

In its May Day message, ETAN condemned the conviction of the Jakarta Six for their “peaceful expression of their opposition to Indonesia’s heavy-handed rule in West Papua”.

“We call for the immediate release of these prisoners and other Papuans arrested for freedom of expression and for the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the terrible violence perpetrated on them.”

A panel of judges at the Central Jakarta District Court found the six activists guilty of treason on April 24 for holding a protest in support of Papuan independence in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta in last August.

Jakarta court finds 6 activists guilty of treason for holding Papuan protest

The bench handed prison sentences to the activists – Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-West Papua) spokesperson Surya Anta and students Charles Kossay, Deno Tabuni, Isay Wenda, Ambrosius Mulait and Arina Elopere – during a virtual verdict hearing. All activists were handed a nine-month prison sentence (including jail time already served), except for Wenda who was punished with eight months’ imprisonment

The defendants’ lawyer, Oky Wiratama, said she was disappointed with the verdicts and questioned the judicial process.

Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid said the treason charges might have been misused by the government against people who should never have been arrested or detained in the first place.

Students targeted
On August 16, the day before Indonesians celebrate independence, Papuan students in dormitories in East Java were targeted by students after rumours spread that the Papuans had “disrespected” the Indonesian flag.

Students and later vigilantes such as the Islam Defenders Front, a notoriously violent Islamist group, attacked West Papuan students, calling them “pigs,” “monkeys” and “dogs”.

Accounts of these attacks show Indonesian security forces directing attacks, and in later attacks participating in the violence against Papuans and Asia Pacific Report widely covered the crisis.

The challenge now is over the risks to these political prisoners languishing in their Indonesian jails. Reports suggest that covid-19 deaths in Indonesia may be substantially higher than officially reported. With the mass overcrowding, the prisons are likely to be vectors for the spread of the coronavirus.

In the Philippines, where jails are also congested, nearly 10,000 prisoners have been released in a bid to halt the spread of covid-19 after outbreaks at several facilities. While announcing the release of 9731prisoners, Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Victor Leonen told media the justice system was “very much aware of the congested situation” in prisons.

‘Shameful’ media freedom threat
Meanwhile, World Press Freedom Day today is being marked by many statements honouring journalists and frontline workers at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.

Among the first statements were from Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union for journalists which called for serious reforms to reverse a raft of “national security” laws that can be used to criminalise journalism and punish whistleblowers for telling the truth.

The union said  that Australia’s reputation as a healthy democracy was now at risk, adding that it was “shameful” that on World Press Freedom Day, three journalists who were the subject of police raids last year “still have the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads”.

In MEAA’s just-released annual The War on Journalism report, 89 percent of 2472 respondents in a survey stated the health of press freedom was poor, or very poor – a sharp deterioration from 71.5 percent in 2019.

“While covid-19 casts a shadow over journalism, we celebrate the bravery of those on the reporting frontline,” declared Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia  (JERAA) president Dr Alex Wake in a statement.

She wrote there was little to celebrate this World Press Freedom Day with Australia slipping five places to 26th in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index  – New Zealand dropped two places to ninth, and other Pacific countries such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga have also slumped.

“Covid-19 is casting our struggling news industry into deeper turmoil, populist world leaders are cheering on attacks on journalists, and funding cuts at Australian universities pose a looming threat to journalism education and research,” she said in the statement.

However, Dr Wake added that colleagues could “honour the extraordinary work of our frontline reporters, many of them just out of our classrooms, putting their own safety at risk covering the covid-19 pandemic”.

The Indonesian human rights advocacy group TAPOL has denounced the sentencing by the district court of Central Jakarta which found six political prisoners guilty of treason yesterday and demanded their immediate release.

Paulus Suryanta Ginting, Ambrosius Mulait, Ariana Elopere, Dano Tabuni, and Charles Kossay were sentenced to nine months imprisonment, whereas Isay Wenda was sentenced to eight months imprisonment.

The six were arrested over their participation in a peaceful protest outside the State Palace in Jakarta on 28 August 2019, during which they flew Morning Star flags and chanted “Free West Papua”.

READ MORE: 63 political prisoners in Indonesia file urgent appeals amid virus pandemic

The first of their trials commenced on 15 December 2019. The prosecutors were seeking one year and five months imprisonment for each, except Isay Wenda, for whom prosecutors sought 10 months.

Suryanta, popularly known as Surya Anta, is the first non-Papuan Indonesian to be detained on treason charges over the West Papua self-determination cause.

The sentences include jail time that they have already served, including eight months for Isay Wenda with a release on 2 May 2020. The other five will still have to spend another month behind bars.

“One month is too long to be serving prison time in this critical pandemic period, as it is anticipated that Indonesia will reach its Covid-19 peak in the coming months,” said TAPOL in a statement.

Other West Papuan political prisoners charged with treason arrested during the uprising are on trial: seven in Balikpapan, four in Manokwari, four in Sorong, and one in Jayapura.

Twenty three political prisoners detained in Fakfak and 11 others in Sorong who were arrested in the lead up to 1 December 2019 and charged with treason are still awaiting trial.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has stated that political prisoners should be among the first to be released amid the pandemic.

Human rights lawyers Veronica Koman and Jennifer Robinson, with the support of TAPOL, have submitted a joint urgent appeal to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and UN Special Rapporteurs on 15 April 2020.

“We therefore reiterate the urgency of releasing all political prisoners currently detained in overcrowded prisons where it is impossible to practice physical distancing,” said TAPOL.

“To organise or participate in a protest and to wave flags are internationally protected activities as freedom of expression and assembly are guaranteed under international law”

• The TAPOL urgent appeal

Sixty-three political prisoners detained on treason charges in Indonesia have made a joint urgent appeal to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and UN Special Rapporteurs in response to the global coronavirus pandemic.

The prisoners instructed us – freedom legal advocate Jennifer Robinson and Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman, with the support of the human rights organisation TAPOL – to bring their cases to the UN.

The urgent appeal demonstrates that all 63 prisoners are being arbitrarily and unlawfully detained in violation of Indonesia’s international human rights obligations.

READ MORE: Political prisoners should be among first released in pandemic response, says UN rights chief

The prisoners are 56 indigenous West Papuans, five Moluccans, one Indonesian, and one Polish citizen.

While most of them are on remand and still awaiting trial, seven have been sentenced and others are currently on trial.

The great majority of the political prisoners (56) were arrested in the crackdown by Indonesian authorities during the mass protest movement in support of West Papua in 2019 (“the West Papua Uprising”).

The activities for which they have been detained range from simply carrying or displaying the West Papuan or Moluccan national flags, to participation in peaceful protests and being members of political organisations which support self-determination – all internationally protected activities.

Charged with treason
All 63 political prisoners have been charged with treason (makar) under Article 106 and/or Article 110 of Indonesia’s Criminal Code, which can carry a sentence of up to 20 years.

The 56 names were delivered to President Jokowi when he visited Australia in February and later to the Indonesian chief security minister, but we so far have not received any response, except the minister saying that the data was “probably just trash”.

We urge the UN and the Indonesian government to take this matter very seriously now that lives are at stake.

The urgent appeal calls for all 63 prisoners to be immediately and unconditionally released due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the particular risk of outbreak in Indonesia’s overcrowded and unsanitary prisons.

In the wake of the pandemic, the UN High Commissioner has called for political prisoners to be released as a matter of priority.

Indonesia, which has the highest pandemic death toll in Asia, has acknowledged the risk of the spread of Covid-19 due to prison overcrowding and has already released 30,000 prisoners.

But the 63 political prisoners, who pose no threat to society, remain in prison.

These urgent appeals have been made given the imminent threat to the prisoners’ lives from being detained in overcrowded prisons amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia.

Their detention is now not only unlawful, but life-threatening. All 63 prisoners should be immediately and unconditionally released.

The cases include:

Sayang Mandabayan (34), one of the few women to have ever been charged with treason, was arrested and detained in September 2019 after speaking at protests during the West Papua Uprising when police found 1496 small Morning Star flags in her bag. As a result of her arbitrary and unlawful detention, she is separated from her 1, 2, and 3-year-old young children, and is only occasionally able to breast feed her youngest child in Manokwari of West Papua. She lost her job at Sorong City Council as a result of her arrest and detention. A picture of her breast feeding her child in prison went viral in Indonesia and beyond, with calls for her release.

Mandabayan is one of 56 indigenous West Papuan prisoners who are part of the joint urgent appeal.

The 63 prisoners also include Paulus “Suryanta” Ginting, spokesperson for the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (Front Rakyat Indonesia untuk West Papua), the first non-Papuan Indonesian to be charged with treason in relation to the West Papuan self-determination movement, and Jakub Skrzypski, a Polish citizen and the first foreign citizen to be charged and convicted of treason for meeting with a West Papuan political organisation advocating for self-determination.

An elderly couple, Izaak Siahaja (80) and Pelpina Siahaja (72), are in prison – convicted of treason and sentenced to 5.5 and 5 years – simply because the banned Benang Raja flag, the national flag of the Republic of the South Moluccas, was displayed inside their home.

West Papuan human rights lawyer, Gustaf Kawer, added his voice to the concerns about the impact of Covid and has called for the suspension of all legal proceedings amid the pandemic and for all the political prisoners to be immediately released.

The trial of six Papuan activists will be held online or long-distance amid the enforcement of large scale social restrictions (PSBB) in Jakarta to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

The activists were scheduled to read out their defence or pledoi (defence speech) in the next hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court this week.

The defence lawyer, Michael Himan, said that the defendants would attend the hearing from prison.

READ MORE: Six Papuans charged with treason

“The defendants are in jail. Those who will appear (in the courtroom) are the defence lawyer, the prosecutor and the judges”, said Himan when contacted.

The six defendants are Paulus Suryanta Ginting, Charles Kossay, Ambrosius Mulait, Isay Wenda, Anes Tabuni and Arina Elopere. They were arrested by police for flying the Morning Star independence flag during a protest action demanding a referendum for Papua in front of the State Palace on August 28 last year.

The hearings into the alleged makar (treason, subversion, rebellion) case have been changed since the coronavirus pandemic has hit Indonesia, particularly in Jakarta. The team of lawyers defending the six had earlier asked the panel of judges to postpone the hearing.

The judges however refused the request and the mechanism for the hearing will be changed so that the defendants can remain in jail. According to Himan, this kind of mechanism has been applied since March 27.

The defendants were not only to just read out their pledoi at this week’s hearing, but were also to hear testimonies from three expert witnesses.

“Correct, the tapols’ (political prisoners’) hearing is scheduled to hear the pledoi and testimonies from experts at the same in accordance with the agreement at the hearing last Friday”, explained Himan.

Earlier, the prosecution indicted Surya Anta and his colleagues under alternative articles, namely Article 106 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) in conjunction with Article 55 Paragraph 1 of KUHP on makar and Article 110 of the KUHP in criminal conspiracy.

At an earlier hearing on Friday, April 3, the prosecution demanded that the six each be sentenced to 1 year and five months in jail.

Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Sidang Aktivis Papua Digelar Secara Online”.

Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD says he is not interested in further examining the document containing data on Papuan political prisoners and people who have died due to the conflict in Nduga, Papua, because it is “incomplete”, reports CNN Indonesia.

Mahfud claims that the government already has more complete information along with biographies.

The document referred to by Mahfud was given to him by a representative of the University of Indonesia Student Representative Council (BEM UI) when he attended an event at the university last month.

“There’s no need to examine it. If indeed it exists, the data is also held by the authorised government office. It just an infographic, we have a more complete list, a list of biographies,” said Mahfud at the presidential office last week.

Mahfud said he was not going to get upset about the BEM UI’s disappointment over his attitude. He insisted that the document only contained names without detailed explanations on the cases which are taken up.

Meanwhile, said Mahfud, police already had the data.

“You gave us a list of names of political prisoners, they may well be just common criminals. All of it has been recorded by Polri [the Indonesian police], it’s not there [in the document], just inconsequential things. It’s already been recorded by the police, why did you give us a thing like that,” he said.

Only names, ages cited
Mahfud however also claimed he could not confirm if the names of the victims in the document from BEM UI had already been recorded by police, saying that the data handed over by BEM UI was incomplete.

According to Mahfud, the police would check and reconcile the names against the data they already had.

“They (BEM UI) only cited the names and ages. Later it will be checked by the police to confirm if there is a legal bases or if indeed they are criminals or political prisoners, Papuans or not. All of it will defiantly be accounted for,” he said.

Earlier, the BEM UI admitted to being disappointed by Mahfud’s attitude over the documents containing the names of Papuan political prisoners.

They said that Mahfud’s attitude when he accepted the documents at the UI campus was different from his attitude off campus.

Off campus, Mahfud referred to the Papua document as just being a document and not of any consequence.

Meanwhile, when BEM UI handing the documents over directly to Mahfud at UI he examined them and glanced over the document’s contents.

Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Tak Periksa Data Papua, Mahfud Klaim Punya yang Lebih Lengkap”.

Pacific human rights activists have personally handed Indonesian President Joko Widodo a protest letter which includes a list of deaths and political prisoners in West Papua.

Written by West Papuan activists and signed by Greens leader Adam Bandt and Senator Richard Di Natale, the letter listed the names of 57 political prisoners charged with treason and held behind bars in seven cities across Indonesia, reports the community and indigenous radio The Wire.

The letter also included the names and ages of 243 civilians who have died during the Nduga military operation since December 2018, 110 of them children.

LISTEN TO THE WIRE: Letter given to President Widodo outlines West Papuan deaths

“These revelations ask the question of why President Widodo and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison would discuss economic ties and climate change, when human rights are at risk?”, The Wire asked.

Jokowi, as President Widodo is known, has been in Australia this week on a bilateral visit.

According to a media release made available to The Jakarta Post, the president was handed details on West Papua’s civilian death toll and political prisoners by activists in a bid to urge an end to the political and humanitarian crisis while he was visiting the Federal Parliament in Canberra.

“Our team in Canberra has managed to hand over letters to President Jokowi directly. The letters include names and locations of 57 political prisoners charged with treason and held behind bars in seven cities across Indonesia,” Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman said.

Names listed
“We also listed the names and ages of 243 civilians who have died during the Nduga military operation since December 2018.

“At the beginning of his first term in 2015, President Jokowi released five West Papuan political prisoners. Indonesians and West Papuans alike saw the move as a new hope for West Papua.

“But now, at the beginning of his second term, there are 57 people awaiting trial for treason, facing life imprisonment. This route will only fuel further conflict,” she said.

Koman said that the West Papuan governor, regents, church leaders, customary leaders, academics, activists and students had begged President Jokowi to withdraw troops from Nduga regency since December 2018, but the request had been ignored.

She said she hoped that Jokowi would halt the humanitarian crisis in the region as he now had the data, including the names of 110 dead children among the total of 243 people.

A team led by Makati police chief Senior Superintendent Rogelio Simon confirmed that the police served the arrest warrant on Trillanes yesterday for the charge of rebellion, hours after the document was released by Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 Executive Judge Elmo Alameda.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Jose Balajadia told reporters that the police followed protocol. He said the National Capital Region Police Office director Chief Superintendent Guillermo Eleazar served the warrant on Trillanes.

READ MORE: Why the Senate backed Trillanes but not De Lima vs Duterte – by Camille Elemia

Eleazar said in an interview on ANC that Trillanes voluntarily went with the arresting team. The senator had earlier said he would not resist arrest providing police presented a the proper warrant.

Trillanes was brought to the Makati City Central Police Station for charging procedures.

He was then taken to Makati RTC Branch 150 to post the bail of P200,000 (NZ$5600). He was accompanied by fellow opposition senators Kiko Pangilinan, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, and Risa Hontiveros; as well as his Magdalo party colleagues.

The judge signed Trillanes’ release order before 5 pm.

Rebellion charge revived
The rebellion charge against Trillanes was revived after President Rodrigo Duterte issued Proclamation No. 572, revoking an amnesty granted to the senator in connection to the 2003 Oakwood mutiny and the 2007 Manila Peninsula siege.

Trillanes had questioned then Police Chief Ronald Del Rosa about extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s bloody, protracted war on drugs, and had also organised the testimony of former members of an alleged death squad that operated under the president while he was mayor of the city of Davao in the country’s south, reports CNN Philippines.

Another opposition senator, Leila de Lima, also a fierce critic of Duterte, has been detained in Camp Crame since February 2017, for drug charges.

Rambo Talabong is a journalist with the independent news website Rappler. Asia Pacific Report publishes under a Creative Commons licence.

• De Lima witness: Duterte ordered death squad killings in Davao
• Duterte’s Trillanes arrest order fiasco

The remarks of renowned American philosopher John Dewey, “If you want to establish some conception of a society, go find out who is in jail”, has been quoted many times to elaborate on the state of freedom in many parts of the world, including Indonesia.

Indeed, reports about people being imprisoned, tortured or executed because of their views or faith are rife in the country.

Looking closely at prisons in Indonesia today, at least 20 people have been locked up for peacefully expressing their views about religion and politics, according to Amnesty International.

Eleven of them were charged with “blasphemy or defamation of religion” and the rest were peaceful pro-independence political activists.

Papua would probably quickly pop up in our minds when talking about the province with the highest number of imprisoned peaceful political activists. Indeed the easternmost province is home to an active armed pro-independence movement.

In western Indonesia, such “insurgence” ended after the government secured a peace agreement with the Free Aceh Movement in 2005.

List of punishers
However, Amnesty International has also identified the underdeveloped province of Maluku, which currently has no record of an armed pro-independence movement, on top of the list of punishers of peaceful political activists.

Eight people from Maluku are serving prison sentences for what the government calls makar (treason). They are Johan Teterissa, Ruben Saiya, Johanis Saiya, Jordan Saiya, John Markus, Romanus Batseran, Jonathan Riry and Pieter Yohanes.

Their only offence is unfurling the Benang Raja flag, a symbol of the aspiration for Maluku’s independence, on June 29, 2007.

Johan Teterissa was leading a group of 22 activists who performed the traditional war dance cakalele in front of then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the Maluku capital of Ambon, before they were all arrested for unfurling the flag.

If Indonesia respects rights to freedom of expression, they should not spend a single day in prison for such peaceful activity. Yet they were thrown behind bars for between 15 and 20 years. Johan was among those denied medical care while at least four of the activists have died in prison.

Amnesty International considers Johan and all those arrested like him prisoners of conscience, who are jailed for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Their arrests highlight the police’s failure to respect these rights.

Adding insult to injury, in March 2009, Johan and dozens of prisoners of conscience were transferred to prisons in Java, more than 2,500 kilometers away from their home. The isolation meant family visits were almost impossible, which is unnecessary, costly and cruel on prisoners and their families.

Maximum security prison
On November 28, 2016, I had a chance to visit Johan Teterissa at a maximum security prison in Nusakambangan, Central Java, with the help of Amnesty International and the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute as part of a campaign to release all prisoners of conscience in Indonesia.

As a Maluku native, I have been enjoying the fruits of freedom in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto in 1998 through my work as an artist. I have been able to freely express my thoughts through songs peacefully, but many in Maluku like Johan and other activists still lack this basic right to freely express political aspiration.

This is why I am calling on the government to release Johan and his friends and grant them amnesty.

Johan and his friends posed no threats to the president when unfurling the “forbidden” flag, but the government at that time considered the act treason. Their arrests clearly tarnish Indonesia’s image as a free country.

The administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo must correct this mistake to restore Indonesia?s so-called freedoms.

Differences in political views must be clearly respected and expressing it peacefully in public never constitutes a crime. There was recent progress when all the prisoners from Maluku were transferred to a prison in the province, enabling easier access to visits for their families.

The transfer also means the administration is open enough to respect different political views.

Amnesty needed
However, relocating them to a Maluku prison is not enough. They must be granted amnesty. Through amnesty, the Jokowi administration could restore Indonesia’s image as a country where anyone can easily express their ideas freely through peaceful means without fearing criminal charges.

In early 2015, I had an opportunity to meet President Jokowi with other artists. I personally asked the President about the fate of political prisoners from Maluku and Papua. I was happy with his firm answer that he would free all political prisoners as soon as possible.

Shortly after, President Jokowi released and granted clemency to six Papuan political prisoners.

I am sure the transfer of the Maluku political activists is part of his plan to release and grant them amnesty. By doing so the President will rebuild trust and public confidence in the eastern part of Indonesia in the government.

I personally believe the peaceful call for independence derives from political frustration among activists in Maluku. One important fact is that Aboru, the village where Johan and other Maluku activists are from, is still very much underdeveloped and neglected by the central and local government.

The government must tackle the root causes instead of arresting them for peacefully expressing their political aspirations. The President must understand this background, so he would be convinced that granting amnesty is the right course of action to solve this case.

I am confident that President Jokowi will walk his talk to release and grant amnesty to all political prisoners in Papua and Maluku in the near future. So when he is asked “who is in jail?? he can confidently say Indonesia no longer has political prisoners there.

Glenn Fredly is a musician and campaigner for freedom of expression. This article was first published in The Jakarta Post.

An Indonesian court has convicted and sentenced an environmentalist to 10 months in prison on a charge of spreading communism by carrying a hammer-and-sickle banner at a protest last year.

The prosecutor at the Banyuwangi District Court, in East Java province, had sought a seven-year sentence for defendant 37-year-old Hari Budiawan (alias Budi Pego).

Communism has been outlawed in the country since the mid-1960s, when a bloody purge against suspected members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) occurred.

A panel of judges ruled on Tuesday that Budi was guilty of a charge against “those who publicly commit crimes verbally, written, or through other media, spread or develop communism, Marxism, Leninism in any attempt”.

“The prosecution proved convincingly that the defendant committed a criminal offence against the state,” chief judge Putu Endru Sonata ruled. “Therefore he must serve 10 months in prison.”

On September 4, 2017, Budi was taken into custody and charged with carrying a banner that displayed communist symbols during an anti-mining protest in East Java in April 2017, causing public unrest.

The court ruled on the lesser sentence because the defendant had never been involved in criminal acts.

Important evidence
The banner’s hammer and sickle logo – the symbol of the liquidated PKI – was important evidence leading to the conviction, Putu told BenarNews.

Budi expressed disappointment.

“I am innocent and cannot accept the verdict,” he said.

Lawyer Ahmad Rifai said the picture showing what looks like the PKI symbol on the banner could not be called a symbol of communism, adding that “the verdict has threatened democracy in Banyuwangi”.

Budi has seven days to decide if he will appeal.

Herlambang P. Wiratraman, the chief of the Centre for Human Rights Law Studies at Airlangga University in Surabaya, agreed with Rifai.

“The stigma of communism became the easiest tool to stop activists who resisted mining in Banyuwangi,” he said.

‘Judicial repression’
Amnesty International (AI) Indonesia also condemned the verdict, calling Budi a prisoner of conscience.

“This is a form of judicial repression against the constitutional rights of citizens to have opinions.

“A higher judicial authority” should immediately release Budi because he had “fought for the preservation of the environment and the rights of the people around Tumpang Pitu Mountain Protected Forest,” AI Indonesia director Usman Hamid said in a written statement.

“The judge should protect fundamental rights, namely the right of expression guaranteed by the constitution” by releasing Budi, Usman said.

In September, after Budi was arrested, fellow activist Agnes Dave questioned the authenticity of the banner.

“Local police and residents were also there. If the activists made such a banner displaying the hammer and sickle, they would have been aware. Police could have stopped the protest and arrested anyone joining in,” she said at the time.

Protesters gathered
While Budi was inside the courtroom learning his fate, hundreds of his supporters and anti-communist protesters gathered outside as police officers armed with a water cannon watched over them.

Members of the Anti-Communist Revival Movement (GAKK) said they supported the guilty verdict and sentencing.

“This is a proof that in Banyuwangi there is indeed a new style of communist revival,” said H. Abdillah Rafsanjani, an organiser of the GAKK protests.

Communism was declared illegal in Indonesia after PKI sympathizers allegedly killed 62 members of Ansor, the youth wing of the largest Indonesian Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, on October 18, 1965.

Human rights organisations estimate that between 500,000 and 1 million Indonesians died during nationwide killings that targeted suspected PKI members in 1965 and 1966.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has condemned the unlawful deprivation of liberty of Papuans which has has been happening frequently lately.

The AHRC has learned that the Indonesian Security Forces have been using excessive force and flaunting their authority to illegally arrest indigenous Papuans.

They are simply exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion and peaceful assembly, the watchdog agency said in a statement.

For instance, take the case which took place on August 20, 2017. Police officers of the Fak-Fak police station (Polres Fak-Fak) arbitrarily arrested 24 indigenous Papuans, said AHRC.

They are members of the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB). The AHRC was informed that they were illegally arrested because they were registered to attend a meeting organised by KNPB in Fak-Fak Regency, West Papua province.

Previously, the AHRC had noted some similar cases faced by members of KNPB Papua.

Yanto Waine, a member of the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB), was illegally detained in the Nabire police station (Polres Nabire) after distributing leaflets to the public.

Students arbitrarily arrested
Twenty nine student activists, mostly Papuan students, were arbitrarily arrested in Yogyakarta province. An additional 32 student activists in Jakarta and 46 student activists in Semarang were also arbitrarily detained.

Considering the massive unlawful deprivation of liberty against indigenous Papuans, the AHRC said it strongly recommended that the government “re-evaluate its policy and the behaviour of its Security Forces”.

The government should ensure that there was no policy in practice that clearly violated or went against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Indonesia became a state party to this covenant by enacting Law No.12 of 2005.

Article 19 of the ICCPR states:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this Article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security, public order, and public health or morals.

Freedom of assembly
Moreover, the Indonesian Constitution 1945 (UUD 1945) clearly guarantees such rights.

Article 28 of the Constitution states: “the freedom to associate and to assemble, to express written and oral opinions, etc., shall be regulated by law.” Further, Article 28 paragraph E states: “Every person shall have the right to the freedom to associate, to assemble and to express opinions.”

Under the Constitution, Indonesia, Law No. 39 of 1999 on Human Rights. Article 24 paragraph 1 states: “Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and association.” Article 6 paragraph 1, relating to indigenous People states: “In the interests of upholding human rights, the differences and needs of Indigenous Peoples must be taken into consideration and protected by the Law, the Public and the Government.”

“Let us look into the cases of human rights violations, in particular massive unlawful deprivation of liberty in Papua. It has been proven that the government has failed to ensure that the Security Forces obey and respect the above-mentioned rights,” the AHRC statement said.

“Even security forces violate the Indonesian Criminal Procedure (KUHAP), which regulates steps and requirements of arrest and detention.

“The government should be aware that extreme restrictions against the right to freedom of opinion, expression and also peaceful assembly, should be conducted based on the Law. It is the National Law which regulates such restrictions and they should not violate or go against the ICCPR itself.”

The AHRC said as outlined in General Comments of the ICCPR No. 35 paragraph 12 “An arrest or detention may be authorised by domestic law and nonetheless be arbitrary. The notion of ‘arbitrariness’ is not to be equated with ‘against the law’. It must be interpreted more broadly to include elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and due process of law, as well as elements of reasonableness, necessity and proportionality.”

‘End stigmatisation’
The AHRC called for the Indonesian government to stop any patterns and forms of unlawful deprivation of liberty against indigenous Papuans.

“The right to freedom of expression, opinion and peaceful assembly must be protected and respected,” the AHRC statement said.

“Furthermore, the Indonesian Security Forces should not subjectively interpret the Law and put an end to the stigmatisation that all political activities conducted by Papuans are crimes. The AHRC urges the government to release all those persons arrested with no criminal charges laid against them.”

• Other West Papua stories

Incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s defeat at the hands of rival candidate Anies Baswedan in the recent runoff election raised alarms among many observers that Indonesia’s young democracy still has a long way to go in combating religious and ethnic discrimination.

However, the capital was calm in the evening after the nail-biting election last month, defusing fears among some residents that mass gatherings or rallies would consume city streets during and in the wake of Wednesday’s vote.

READ MORE: ASEAN lawmakers alarmed at ‘blasphemy’ conviction of Ahok

Investors seemed relieved as well, as the country’s benchmark stock index dropped only slightly the day after the election, with businessmen observing that risks or uncertainties in Indonesian markets were largely dispelled due to the peaceful election turnout.

Indeed, more relief came later in the week, as state prosecutors pushed for reduced charges in a blasphemy case against Jakarta’s first ethnic Chinese and Christian leader in the post-Suharto era.

However, this came to nought when the trial judges ignored the prosecutors and imposed a harsher sentence of two years’ imprisonment on Ahok after finding him “guilty”.

However, rhetoric and methods used by politicians in defeating Ahok have nevertheless raised concerns among local and foreign political observers concerned about the future for democracy in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Stigma
Poet and senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad wrote a comment on his official Facebook account analysing what the defeat of Ahok – an outspoken governor who often drew ire from his political opponents – could mean for the path ahead.

“Ahok has lost; this has now been settled by the 2017 regional election. All that noise surrounding it will soon become history. Many are relieved ¬ either because Anies has won, or because the campaign, poisoned with hate that shattered many friendships, has finally passed,” said the former editor-in-chief of investigative magazine Tempo.

“But I hope one thing will not be forgotten. Ahok has entered the arena bound in fetters and labeled as ‘a blasphemer’. He can move and talk, but he is not entirely free.

“His achievements as the region’s head, which have been acknowledged by many and made him unparalleled, are now almost no longer seen or heard of.

“The use of the label against Ahok is probably the most successful stigmatisation technique in the history of Indonesian politics. A stigma derived from slander. He did not insult Islam, but the charge had been continuously repeated.

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes ‘the truth,’ the Nazi’s propaganda chief used to say. We hear it at mosques, in social media, in everyday conversations; the allegation has been turned into a conviction,” Goenawan said.

“Now Ahok is tried by the court, charged under the anti-blasphemy law that was produced by the New Order regime ¬ a law with unclear provisions, unclear even on who has the right to represent the religion that had been insulted. As a result of it, Ahok has been treated unjustly in three ways: through slander, by being presumed guilty before the court’s verdict and by being tried under a dubious law.

“It is hypocritical to pretend to recognise this injustice while cheering his immutable political defeat. Ahok has lost, he may even be sentenced in a court process informed by mass pressure. The truth may also lose ¬ as it is wont to do in this ‘post-truth’ era,” Goenawan said.

Identity politics
Concerns over the future of democracy in the Southeast Asian country were shared by foreign observers as well.

Reuters news agency reported that international rating agency Fitch said in a statement previous religious tensions during the Jakarta gubernatorial election could resurface in the run-up to the country’s next presidential race in 2019.

“The early results of the tense Jakarta elections seem to suggest that religious factors could play an increasingly significant role in future Indonesian elections,” the statement said, as cited by Reuters.

Three mass rallies against Ahok were led by hardline Muslim groups in the campaign period before last week’s vote, threatening to erode the country’s longstanding tradition of practising a moderate form of Islam.

However, the rating agency still acknowledged Indonesia’s recent progress, explaining that the country has made “substantial” strides in improving good governance over the past two decades. The country’s democratic electoral processes, the statement said, were still intact.

Still, experts and academics around the world say that religious and ethnic discrimination should be expected to play a greater role in future elections if the government and high-ranking Muslim figures do not take significant steps to promote tolerance.

“Going forward, the politics of religion is going to be a potent force,” Keith Loveard, an analyst at Jakarta-based Concord Consulting and an author of books about Indonesian politics, said in a report on Wednesday.

Reluctant to vote
According to Loveard, some residents may have been reluctant to vote for Ahok due to worries of “five more years of protests on the streets by Muslim hardliners”.

Muhammad Najib Azca, a professor of social and political sciences at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, viewed religious and ethnic intolerance as a driving factor in the election’s outcome.

“What happened in Jakarta was an anomaly. Ahok and Djarot were unable to translate their high approval rating […] into real political support,” Najib said.

“There were variables beyond public approval ratings, including strong undertones of religious-based identity politics,” he added.

Najib argued that identity politics has become a main force in driving public opinion, even in the face of successful governance programmes directed by Ahok. “This intervening variable has affected voters through a very sophisticated and elaborate political process.”

Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies and a Research Fellow at Murdoch University’s Asia Research Center, said – in an article published by newmandala.org – the election results will most likely have a lasting impact on national politics for years to come.

“Judging from national and international headlines, Jakarta’s gubernatorial election on April 19 represents not just a major turning point for the nation’s capital and city of 12 million, but potentially for the entire country,” he wrote.

“The alarmist tone is largely due to the unsettling direction campaigning has taken over the past eight months, that has seen any possible substantive policy debates over how to best tackle Jakarta’s complex infrastructural, economic and social problems subsumed by sectarian identity politics.”

Economic inequality
Wilson, whose research touches on the political economy of gangs, organised crime and violence in Indonesia, went on to say that: “While the campaigns present, at one level of analysis, a stark contrast between ‘diversity’ on the one hand and sectarian populism on the other, a shared point of commonality is the respective silence regarding a significant shaping force in Jakarta, and arguably the election: rising levels of economic inequality.”

He pointed to data from the country’s Bureau of Statistics – which shows a steady increase in levels of economic inequality in Jakarta – that reflects a broader trend that has been sweeping the nation over the past decade.

“The country’s much-heralded economic growth has been marked by growing concentrations of that wealth in the hands of a few, and a stagnation if not deterioration in the standard of living of a vast majority of Indonesians,” he said.

Wilson also pointed to a 2017 Oxfam report on the widening wealth gap in Indonesia, in which “inequality has been driven by a combination of ‘market fundamentalism,’ high concentrations of land ownership,” and the fact that Indonesia registered the second lowest rate of tax collection in Southeast Asia.

“The poor and precarious bear the most drastic and damaging impacts of economic inequality, though in a densely populated megacity like Jakarta, it is felt by all social and economic classes ¬ albeit in often vastly different ways and with a range of social and political consequences,” he said.

Wilson continued, “For Jakarta’s upper middle classes the desire for security, lifestyle and convenience ¬ together with the push by developers for profitable all-inclusive developments ¬ has meant increasingly self-imposed spatial separation from other social and economic groups within gated estates, apartment towers, shopping malls and private vehicles.”

“Once a city of economically mixed neighborhoods, large parts of the city are spatially divided by class and ethnicity. This can be seen in the city’s north, where remaining kampung sit in uneasy tension alongside luxury apartments and gated communities,” Wilson said.

Old political and business elites emerge
For President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the election outcome poses a new challenge of rising Islamism and the renewed influence of Indonesia’s old political and business elites in the public sphere.

Many old guard figures have shown support for Anies during the election campaign, including moguls Aburizal Bakrie, Hashim Djojohadikusumo and Hary Tanoesoedibjo and retired general and failed 2014 presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.

All were prominent businessmen or military officers linked to the three-decade authoritarian regime of Suharto before his ouster in 1998.

Reconciliation
While Jakarta remains hampered by a dizzying array of social and political hurdles, scholar Komaruddin Hidayat, dean of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Banten, Jakarta, called on city residents to eliminate any racial, religious or ethnic intolerance.

“We should eliminate the notion of majority and minority, and the government should establish a way to bridge any gaps through the improvement of people’s welfare,” Komaruddin said.

Komaruddin, a widely known liberal Muslim scholar and author of several books on religious diversity, said minority groups in Indonesia have existed long before the country achieved independence in 1945-48 and have worked hard to personify the ideals of the state ideology, Pancasila.

“Therefore, they should be granted equality in our society and government,” he said.

Indeed, Ahok is not the first Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta. From 1964-65, Hendrik Hermanus Joel Ngantung, known as Henk Ngatung, served as the capital’s chief executive and was instrumental in installing artistic statues and monuments throughout the city as befitted his status as one of the country’s leading painters at that time.

Various reports show that ethnic Chinese, who currently comprise about 15 percent of the country’s population, have historically fought alongside local freedom fighters, known as pribumi, against the Dutch – Indonesia’s colonial masters – and the Japanese.

Sadly, their participation in building modern Indonesia has been expunged from the country’s historical consciousness.

Muhamad Al Azhari and Eko Prasetyoare journalists with the Jakarta Globe. This article includes some news agency content.

• ASEAN lawmakers alarmed at ‘blasphemy’ conviction of Ahok