Papuan students to sue polls commission

YOGYAKARTA: A group of Papua students have threatened to sue the Yogyakarta polls commission for denying their right to vote.

Group leader Ones Kambo said the commission had failed to fulfil its promise to hold a suspended election for 525 Papuan students who could not exercise their rights, despite the fact that they had secured a permit to vote outside their areas of residence.

"We lost our rights because of poor coordination between the commission officials and poll workers in the field. They made us wait until the polling stations closed but have refused to administer a separate election for us," Ones said.

The students, who were angry they could not vote, ransacked the office of the poll commission.

Ones said the students apologized for the incident. "We committed violence not on purpose. That was because we felt we had been cheated. We deeply regret the incident and apologize to the people of Yogyakarta for the disturbance caused," he said.

Irsyad Thamrin, the students' lawyer from the Yogyakarta Legal Aid Institute, said he was drafting a legal notice to be sent to the polls commission. "Our clients demand the commission's public apology for denying their right to vote," he said. - JP