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Rights groups call on AGO to investigate gross human rights violations in Paniai
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Human rights (Shutterstock/garagestoc)
H
uman rights groups and a number of Papuan activists have urged the Attorney General's Office (AGO), which has the authority to conduct investigations into alleged gross human rights violations, to probe the 2014 killings in Paniai regency of Papua.
The AGO said previously that it would return a Paniai dossier handed over last month by the National Commission on Human Rights Violations (Komnas HAM), claiming that it “did not meet formal and material requirements". The Komnas HAM report claims that Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers had committed “gross human rights violations” by killing and persecuting civilians.
Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Yati Andriyani questioned the AGO's intentions, saying the Komnas HAM report had provided sufficient preliminary evidence, as required by the 2000 law on human rights trials.
The law requires Komnas HAM to follow up reports of alleged gross human rights abuses and to conduct preliminary investigations, but gives the authority to investigate and prosecute those cases to the AGO. The law stipulates that Komnas HAM must submit the dossiers to the AGO.
"There were brutal killings in the incident, and the victims included children. It clearly meets the elements of a gross human rights violation," Yati said on Wednesday at a press conference involving a number of human rights groups and Papuan activists in Jakarta.
She said the AGO's plan to return the report could be seen as a way of avoiding the settlement of the alleged gross human rights violations in Paniai and would reinforce the culture of impunity enjoyed by human rights violators, particularly regarding cases in Papua.
Usman Hamid from Amnesty International Indonesia said it was the AGO's duty to follow up Komnas HAM's findings and complete the dossiers, especially when it found something lacking in the documents.
