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Australian, Canadian activists freed without charge
Indonesian Police released without charge Thursday three refugee activists - two Australians and one Canadian national - who were detained in Merak, Banten, on suspicion of human trafficking
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I
ndonesian Police released without charge Thursday three refugee activists - two Australians and one Canadian national - who were detained in Merak, Banten, on suspicion of human trafficking.
The activists were detained when they attempted to visit a group of more than 240 Tamil asylum seekers who have been stranded on a boat at Indah Kiat Port in Merak for the past three months.
The two Australians are Tamil community activist, Sara Nathan, and Pamela Curr (not Pamela Poor as printed on this page on Thursday’s edition) from the Asylum Seeker Resource Center. The Canadian, Jessica Chandrashekar is from a humanitarian organization called the Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils.
All three are now in a hotel in Jakarta and will leave Indonesia on Friday.
Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Australian refugee lobby group, the Refugee Action Coalition, said
the trio were questioned for 11 hours on Tuesday and five hours on Wednesday.
“They didn’t say they were mistreated, but they were subject to some pretty intense questioning,” Rintoul said.
He added that police allegations the trio were involved in human trafficking were “complete nonsense”.
“The police tried to make a case that ‘Nathan’ is the name of a known people smuggler associated with the boat at Merak,” Rintoul said.
“But ‘Nathan’ isn’t even Sara’s real name, it’s a shortened version of her family name, ‘Ramanathan’.”
National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi told reporters Wednesday that police had preliminary evidence suggesting the foreigners were involved in human trafficking.
This evidence may have included some Australian humanitarian visa application forms, which Nathan allegedly gave to some of the Tamil refugees in late December, 2009.
“A lot of the questioning revolved around some forms she distributed to people on the boat at Merak,” Rintoul said.
“When Sara and the others were taken to the police station, [the police] had several forms, which they had confiscated from Tamils on the boat.”
Contrary to earlier media reports, the activists were not arrested, but were held for questioning, according to Rintoul. He said the activists were in the country to meet with a number of government officials about trying to arrange humanitarian supplies for the people on the boat.
“They’re in good spirits, but a bit anxious because they didn’t think they had done anything wrong,” Rintoul said.
The writer is an intern with The Jakarta Post.
