Andi Saputra, Jakarta – The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) says that human rights violations in Papua are still high. These violations represent a threat to civil freedoms and discriminate against the Papuan people’s identity.

The high level of human rights violations have been aggravated by unclear regulations and a failure to provide a sense of justice to the public.

“There is still a great deal of violence and threats against civil liberties”, said Kontras Papua coordinator Olga Hamadi during a press conference at the Kontras’ offices on Jl. Borobudur in Jakarta on Friday January 21.

This was revealed after Kontras held its third congress in Jakarta yesterday. According to Olga, what has been taking place in Papua is an increase in horizontal violence, both structural as well as mysterious. This has been aggravated by the lack of any legal resolution that satisfies the public’s sense of justice.

“Is this in fact being setup to increase the number of security personnel in Papua?”, asked Olga. “In the case of the legal process, the verdicts are always light. Five or six month’s jail. This harms the public’s sense of justice”, he asserted.

In addition to uncovering human rights violations in Papua, Kontras also exposed the human rights violations taking place in other regions such as Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara and East Java.

“In Sulawesi, most human rights violations were in the agrarian sector and the criminalisation of human rights workers. This is because there is no commitment on the part of the regional government to strengthen human rights enforcement”, said Kontras Jakarta coordinator Haris Azhar during the same press conference. (asp/lrn)

[Translated by James Balowski.]