Indonesia

  • West Papua: Independence movement defies repression

    Indonesian military forces have stepped up their campaign of repression in West Papua in recent months. But leaders of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) continue to defy Indonesian demands to surrender. The campaign for West Papuan independence has been amplified by the continuing repression and lack of improvement of living standards under the current “special autonomy” system. An eyewitness report from West Papua Media Announcements (WPMA) posted on Pacific.scoop.co.nz on June 16 described a large military mobilisation in the mountainous Puncak Jaya region in central West Papua.

  • Indonesian solidarity with Thai Red Shirts

    On May 25, 70 people protested outside the Thai embassy in Jakarta in solidarity with the pro-democracy Red Shirts in Thailand. The protest was jointly called by the Working Peoples Association (PRP), the People’s Democratic Party (PRD), the Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance (Konfederasi KASBI); the Indonesian Nasional Front for Labour Struggle (FNPBI); the National Student League for Democracy (LMND)

  • Merak asylum seekers jailed in Indonesia

    Over April 19-20, Indonesian police and naval officers forced almost 150 Tamils onto buses at Port Merak and took them to the Tanjung Pinang detention centre. For seven months, more than 250 Tamils had withstood appalling conditions aboard a squalid boat at the West Java port. Their hope was for refugee status in Australia. Their fear was of being locked up in Indonesian detention centres or deported back to Sri Lanka.

  • Indonesian workers demand cancellation of fuel hike

    Around 80 people demonstrated under the banner of the National front for Indonesian Workers Struggle (FNPBI) outside the headquarters of ExxonMobil and the national parliament building to demand that the government cancel the increase in the price of fuel.

  • Indonesia: Left confronts fuel price hike

    Fuel price hikes have always sparked widespread mass protests in Indonesia since the overthrow of the dictator Suharto in a popular uprising in 1998. However, the timing this year was special.

  • Indonesian activist offices attacked

    Twenty thugs brutally attacked the offices of Political Committee of the Poor — FPRM-PRD in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan on May 17 while activists were present. Police and intelligence agents, who had the offices under surveillance, were seen to

  • Indonesian environmental refugees protest

    A massive environmental disaster in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, has forced 15,000 people to leave their homes in the past two years. An enormous eruption of hot mud that began in May 2006 continues to flow at a rate of 148,000 cubic metres a day. Activists

  • Indonesia: Campaign for mining nationalisation continues

    Below is a compilation of reports from the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) and the National Student League for Democracy (LMND) about the campaign to recover Indonesia’s national sovereignty, the main focus of which has been a series of protests across Indonesia to demand the nationalisation of the mining industry.