JAKARTA: More than two dozen prisoners jailed for supporting independence for Indonesia’s restive Papua region have rejected a proposal to grant them a presidential pardon, an official said yesterday.
Papuan leaders raised the possibility of freeing the prisoners at a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta in April, according to Yunus Wonda, deputy speaker of Papua’s parliament.
Wonda said that Yudhoyono “basically had no objection” to the proposal, although a presidential pardon has yet to be formally offered.
“We reject the government of Indonesia’s plan to give us clemency,” said the statement signed last week.
“We do not need to be freed from jail, but we need and demand the freedom of the nation of Papua from the colonisation of the colonial state of the Republic of Indonesia.”
The prisoners were convicted of treason for offences such as raising the separatist “Morning Star” flag and taking part in anti-government protests, and are serving sentences ranging from several years in prison to life.
The prisoner proposal was one of 20 requests put to the president by Lukas Enembe, the newly elected governor of Papua province.
More than 170 people are in prison for peacefully promoting separatism in Indonesia.
Jakarta denies allegations of systematic human rights abuses.
AFP
