On 7 April 2021, Amnesty International published its new report 2020/2021. The report contains information on the human rights situation in 149 countries in 2020. The section on Indonesia contains a sub-section focusing on the pattern of human rights violations in West Papua. According to Amnesty International, at least 47 cases of suspected unlawful killings by security forces were recorded between February 2018 and August 2020, resulting in 96 fatalities. The cases were almost equally committed by members of the police, the military and joined security forces.
The director of Amnesty International Indonesia (AII), Usman Hamid, commented that the figures illustrate the Government’s lack of commitment for the enforcement and protection of human rights. AII documented 19 cases and 30 victims of extra-judicial killings in West Papua throughout 2020. The occurrence of four unlawful killing cases with six victims between January and March 2021 indicate that such violations are likely to continue throughout 2021.
AII noted that none of the perpetrators of extra-judicial killings which occurred since 2018 had been sentenced in a military or public court. According to Hamid, AII counted 50 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings by security forces, with 84 victims since January 2018. Only four cases were prosecuted. Three cases that military members allegedly committed are stuck at the investigation stage of military prosecutors, while one new case has just been transferred to the district attorney.
