Papua torture probe continued by rights group

Posted at 01:48 on 27 November, 2010 UTC

Indonesia’s Human Rights Commission has sent a new team to remote Puncak Jaya region to investigate the May 30th torture of two Papuan farmers by the military.

Video footage of the torture, which involved burning of the Papuans’ genitals, was widely circulated last month via the internet.

Human Rights groups are concerned that the government is stalling on moves to investigate the torture, while the military has signalled that the perpetrators aren’t identifiable.

However, footage has been released in the past two days of one of the Papuan victims giving testimony about being tortured.

Human Rights Watch’s Andreas Harsono says the testimony could be critical to any probe especially since the Commission’s team which went to investigate the incident last month couldn’t identify the victims.

“Two days ago they sent another team, this time from Jayapura, the capital of Papua, to Puncak Jaya. There are three of them. Hopefully they are not confused because the Papuan Customary Council had submitted this testimony to the Human Rights Commission.”

Andreas Harsono

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