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apuans condemned President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s statement, which downplayed the escalating violence in the province and considered the recent deaths from shooting incidents as relatively minor in comparison to conflicts in other parts of the world.

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Yudhoyono said “the recent incidents in Papua can be considered small-scale, with a limited number of casualties” and “they are minor if we compare them to the violence in the Middle East, where deadly attacks with so many fatalities occur almost every day”.

Papuan activist John Djonga said the statements reflected Yudhoyono’s lack of commitment to promote and protect human rights, an issue that his administration had championed and promoted to the global community.

“It’s really sad for the President to disrespect all the victims of recent shootings. Violence is still painful regardless of how many victims there are. So for me, it is now clear that the Yudhoyono [administration], and the Indonesian government in general, have no commitment to upholding justice and protecting human rights in Papua,” Djonga told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said that all the international human rights covenants promoting human rights that Indonesia had ratified were useless as the government paid little respect to the lives of its people.

“Or maybe it’s only the lives of Papuans that don’t deserve the government’s respect,” he said.

Separately, members of the House of Representatives from Papua, Pasakalis Kossay and Agustina Basik-basik, called on Yudhoyono to apologize for his statement.

“The President’s words really hurt Papuans, and the relatives of all victims, in particular those who have been shot dead in mysterious circumstances,” said Paskalis, who chairs the Caucus for Papua at the House.

At least 16 people were killed in the past month alone in mysterious shootings.

The latest incident claimed the life of 44-year-old Surono, a security guard and part-time motorcycle taxi driver in Jayapura, who was shot dead near the campus of Cendrawasih University last Sunday.

The mysterious shootings in Papua escalated only a few days after the Indonesian government claimed that “Papua is stable” during the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) quadrennial human rights review on May 23.

Diplomats in the review session inquired about human rights violations in Papua and the Indonesian government’s commitment to releasing Papuan political detainees such as Filep Karma, who was arrested for flying the flag of the Papuan separatist movement.

Separately, Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsudin said that authorities had followed proper procedures in detaining Papuans.

“We have never detained anybody for expressing their freedom of speech as has been accused by some parties. The Papuans who were detained, including Filep Karma, are those who have obviously violated the law on treason. Therefore, it’s misleading to address them as political detainees,” Amir told reporters.

Separately, the executive director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, Poengky Indarti said that treason charges were highly political and prone to abuse by the government.

“Karma, and many of his colleagues, was detained for flying the Morning Star flag, the flag associated with a separatist movement. They are condemned as separatists, therefore they are political detainees,” Poengky said.