Indonesia: Lift Restrictions on Reporting, Access to Papua

 Update/28/06-2012

Invite UN Rights Experts to Increasingly Violent Eastern Provinces

Police vehicles patrol the street in Waena, Jayapura on 06/14.

(New York),-- The Indonesian government should allow foreign media and civil society groups access to Papua to report on violence and rights violations since May that have left at least 14 dead.

Human Rights Watch urged Indonesia to accept calls made at the United Nations Human Rights Council to permit access to the province and to issue standing invitations to UN human rights experts.

"By keeping Papua behind a curtain, the Indonesian government is fostering impunity among military forces and resentment among Papuans. It needs to let the media and civil society shine a light on conditions in the province. Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director".

“By keeping Papua behind a curtain, the Indonesian government is fostering impunity among military forces and resentment among Papuans,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It needs to let the media and civil society shine a light on conditions in the province.”

Human Rights Watch said that the Indonesian government has failed to hold to account those responsible for recent violence in Papua. On June 6, 2012, a crowd stabbed one Indonesian soldier to death and seriously injured another after their motorcycle struck a Papuan child in Honai Lama District in Wamena, a city in Papua’s Central Highlands.

Orginal NewsL http://www.hrw.org/news/