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n international human rights watchdog has slammed the National Police for giving light punishment to police officers involved in the bloody Papuan Congress, calling it a “failure of human rights accountability”.

During the meeting with the House of Representatives on Friday, National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said the police had meted out sanctions to police officers found guilty of breaching the police’s code of ethics. Timur conceded that some police officers had taken the wrong approach during the third Papuan People’s Congress in Abepura, Papua, which left three Papuans dead.

According to Timur, the police had officially reprimanded 13 district police officers, four Mobil Brigade (Brimob) officers and one district police chief, while five Jayapura Police officers had been given seven-day detentions.

International human rights watchdog Amnesty International denounced the light punishments given to the guilty police officers.

“This is yet another example of how in Indonesia most human rights violations committed by police officers never reach civilian courts, but are dealt with through inhouse disciplinary hearings,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International.

“Internal disciplinary procedures are for dealing with minor offenses, not serious human rights violations,” he added.

Zarifi also urged the Indonesian authorities to set up an independent police complaints mechanism to deal with human rights violations by police officers, describing the current established bodies, such as the National Police Commission or Komnas HAM, as “powerless” to deal effectively with complaints about police abuses.

Despite punishing his officers, Timur defended the measures taken by officers at the congress in Abepura. “What we did [at Abepura] was part of law enforcement,” he said.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Su-yanto, who also attended the House meeting, echoed Timur’s statement. “I hereby defend my colleague from the police. I think it’s impossible for officers [military and police] to commit violence for no reason … there must be a logical explanation for their anarchist deeds.”

Human rights violations have been prevalent in restive Papua, with the police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) repeatedly being blamed.

Previously, the TNI was vilified by the international community after a video showing soldiers torturing native Papuans was uploaded on YouTube.

The ruling of the military tribunal, which sentenced the three soldiers to between eight and 10 months in prison in January this year, was widely criticized as a “miscarriage of justice” by human rights activists.

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono has also been criticized by the international community for his failure to uphold human rights principles in Papua. (sat)