The “president” of Papua, Forkorus Yaboisembut, at Jayapura District Court in 2012. Photo: Jakarta Globe / Antara

Pacific Scoop: Report – By Katharina R. Lestari in Jakarta

Five West Papuan political prisoners have been released after serving three-year sentences in a Jayapura prison.

The activists were arrested in October 2011 for reading out a “declaration of independence” from Indonesia. They were released yesterday.

“Those released included prominent tribal leader Forkorus Yaboisembut, who was declared “president of the Federal Republic of West Papua” during the 2011 declaration of independence event; Edison Waromi, who was declared prime minister; as well as Agustinus Sanany Kraar, Selpius Bobii and Dominikus Sorbet. Read more »

A documentary roundup of the Third Papuan People’s Congress in 2011 showing police and military violence against participants. Video: West Papua Media Alerts

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

The Indonesian government has temporarily scrapped a controversial New Zealand-run police training programme for officers involved in the military occupation of West Papua.

Radio New Zealand International reported that the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said only that Indonesia had pulled out of the next phase of the programme “at this time”.

However, the programme could be revived after the Indonesian presidential electionsin July as the ministry has said the future of the programme will depend on the priorities agreed by New Zealand and the newly elected government. Read more »

West Papuan paper boats for justice. The heart of the West Papuan community in Australia basically arrived as refugees in one boat. In January 2006, 43 people left Merauke, in the south-east of West Papua, on a 25-metre traditional wooden canoe. Image: Wil Gleeson/New Matilda

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Nethy Dharma Somba  in Jayapura

The Democratic Party garnered the most votes for the House of Representatives in Papua with a total of 700,150 votes out of 2,949,189 valid votes.

As a result, the Dems gained two seats at the House of Representatives out of the 10 Papua-assigned seats, which is one less than the 2009-2014 period.

“The Democratic Party has always been solid and will always be solid. So even though there is wobbly internal dynamics, it still garners the most votes,” said an executive from the party’s provincial executive board, Carolus Bolly. Read more »

Delegates from the Asia-Pacific region at the WILPF 2014 “Militarisation in the Pacific” conference in Auckland at the weekend. Image: Ruth Coombes/WILPF

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

Women peace campaigners from Aotearoa, Australia, Hawai’i, Japan, Philippines and Polynesia/Te Ao Maohi have called for the removal of military occupation and bases in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meeting at AUT University in New Zealand, the three-day conference organised by the Aotearoa section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom also called for the removal of military training and promotions that “normalise violence” in schools.

The women campaigners urged that military spending be reallocated to eliminate all forms of violence – domestic, social and military. Read more »

Hawai’ian filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly (second from right) with campaigners against militarisation in the Pacific at the WILPF conference in Auckland last night. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – by the Pacific Media Centre news desk

Women campaigners from across the Pacific gathered on ANZAC Day in New Zealand for a three-day hui about militarisation of the region and called for indigenous people’s rights before “corporate rights” in development.

Organised by the Aotearoa Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), New Zealand’s oldest peace movement, activists have come from Australia, Fiji, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Tahiti to the conference hosted at AUT University in Auckland by the Pacific Media Centre.

Last night the powerful documentary Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i by Anne Keala Kelly about the “recolonisation” of the islands by American economic and business interests and the desecration of sacred lands was screened. Read more »

Indonesian soldiers on patrol in Papua. Image: ETAN

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

Two Indonesian military officers have been wounded after yet another exchange of gunfire between the military and an armed group suspected to be part of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in Puncak Jaya district, Papua, reports the Jakarta Globe.

The two soldiers were identified as Polang Harahap and Rahman Hakim, who were shot in the forehead and right shoulder respectively, after an armed group ambushed a military (TNI) outpost in Gurage village, Puncak Jaya on Friday afternoon. The assailants managed to flee the scene.

“‘[Both injured soldiers] are being evacuated to Mulia Hospital,” said Lieutenant Colonel Rikas Hidayatullah, spokesman for the Papua military command. “Other [TNI] members are chasing after the shooters. We don’t know yet if anyone [from the attackers] was injured.” Read more »

A documentary crew and Pacific Media Watch editor Anna Majavu (left) at the book launching in Auckland tonight. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Anna Majavu

A groundbreaking new book covering Pacific journalism over the past 30 years reveals so many human rights abuses that it has been likened to “an entire series of Game of Thrones”.

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie, was launched at the Auckland University of Technology tonight.

Its publisher, Tony Murrow of Little Island Press, described the book as “like an entire series of Game of Thrones. The shame of it is that it is not a work of fiction”. Read more »

David Robie talks to Te Waha Nui’s Monique McKenzie about the new book.

Pacific Scoop:
News review – By Patrick Craddock in Suva

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is being published today while Fiji is voicing the mantra of the “free press” at the same time as it continues to ban experienced Pacific reporters such as Barbara Dreaver and Michael Field from New Zealand and Sean Dorney of the ABC.

Ashwin Raj, chairman of the new Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) is haranguing journalists at public media meetings using expressions such as “…the complicity of select Fijian journalists and media either wittingly or those that remain oblivious to the laws of Fiji…”

The same MIDA that is so upset with Sean Dorney’s mild comment that “there was a feeling in the room anyway that the situation in Fiji wasn’t as free and open for the media as it should be” is also asking for “an ethos of robust debate”. Read more »

Papuan student Alfares Kapissa … detained and beaten in police custody for 36 hours. Image: New Matilda

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Ronny Kareni for New Matilda

The brutal repression of West Papuan student protests last week is indicative of Indonesia’s approach to the region.

Wednesday 2 April marked a global day of action to call for the immediate and unconditional release of the 77 Papuan and Malukan political prisoners currently being held in Indonesian prisons. Protests were staged simultaneously in Melbourne, London, The Hague, Auckland, Wellington, Edinburgh and Jayapura,

The protest in the West Papuan capital Jayapura, at Cenderawasih University, was interrupted by armed police with four Dalmas trucks (a kind of troop carrier), two mobile brigade trucks and one police van. Read more »