Indonesia blocks Internet in Papua
Indonesia has cut off Internet access in eastern Papua to prevent provocative posts online from fuelling violence, after protesters torched buildings, a market and a prison over mistreatment of students and perceived ethnic discrimination.
Police have flown in 1,200 additional officers to Papua to quell sometimes violent protests since Monday in several towns, including Timika – which stands near the giant Grasberg copper mine operated by Freeport McMoran’s Indonesian unit – as well as Manokwari, Sorong, and Fakfak.
Smaller demonstrations and rallies in favour of Papua flared up throughout Indonesia yesterday, while Indonesia’s chief security minister, police chief and military commander visited Sorong to inspect where the most violent protests had occurred.
Two new rallies, described as peaceful by officials, unfolded in the Nabire and Yahukimo parts of Papua, according to Indonesian news site Kompas.
A separate and more tense protest erupted yesterday in Jakarta where more than a hundred Papuan students demonstrated in the heart of the Indonesian capital.
As they marched from the Indonesian army headquarters to the gates of the presidential palace, demonstrators shouted pro-independence slogans demanding “referendum for Papua” or “freedom for Papua”.
Some held posters demanding the right to self-determination and “to end racism and colonialism in West Papua”.
Another smaller Papuan student protest also started on Thursday in the nearby city of Bogor.
Indonesia’s communication ministry has blocked access to telecommunication data and internet to prevent Papuans from accessing social media since Wednesday night, though calls and text messages will still work, Ferdinandus Setu, ministry spokesman said.
“This is an effort to curb hoax and most importantly stop people from sharing provocative messages that can incite racial hatred,” he said, adding that the curb may be lifted “if the situation has calmed”.
Police have arrested 34 people in Timika, where thousands of protesters threw rocks at a parliament building, houses, shops and a hotel on Wednesday, officials told local media.
They accuse 13 of being members of a pro-Papua independence separatist group.
President Joko Widodo has been informed that the situation in Papua was under control, his Cabinet Secretariat said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Widodo has sought to ease tensions and improve welfare by building infrastructure in the provinces.
He has visited the restive region more frequently than any of his predecessors, and plans to go to Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, next month, to open a new bridge, the secretariat said. — Reuters
Mexican authorities Wednesday arrested six federal police officers over their alleged involvement in a 2015 massacre in which 16 people were killed in the western state of Michoacan.
“The six people were arrested with full respect for their human rights, without violence or the involvement of third parties, to be made available to the judge who requested them,” the attorney general said in a statement.
The officers were arrested inside federal police facilities.
On Jan 6, 2015, at least 16 people were killed and several others wounded when federal police allegedly shot at members and supporters of civilian self-defence militias who were demonstrating at the city hall in Apatzingan, Michoacan.
At the time, the government of then-president Enrique Pena Nieto said the members of the self-defence groups had died in the crossfire.
However, a journalistic investigation revealed that the federal police had killed unarmed protesters in cold blood.
Michoacan is a flash-point in the violent organised-crime wars that have swept Mexico in recent years, leading to the rise of self-defense groups six years ago and the deployment of soldiers to the state in 2014.
On Aug 8 this year, 19 bodies were found in a turf war between drug gangs in the city of Uruapan in Michoacan.
The government first deployed the army to fight criminal gangs at the end of 2006 — a strategy that critics say has only led to an escalation in the grisly violence.
Since then more than 250,000 murders have been recorded, according to official figures, although it is not detailed how many are linked to the fight against crime. — AFP