Amnesty International is urging the Indonesian government to respect human rights when dealing with unrest in Papua.

Amnesty met with Indonesia's Minister for Law, Politics and Security, Djoko Suyanto, yesterday to try to secure the release of detained political prisoners. Amnesty says 90 people are currently locked up in Papua and Maluku for demonstrating and it calls on the Indonesian government to differentiate between violent and peaceful protest.

Presenter: Sen Lam

Speaker: Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's director for Asia-Pacific

Zarifi: The meeting was actually at the invitation of President Yudhoyono, who asked to meet with Amnesty International to discuss the situation in Papua obviously as a result of increasing international attention as well as rising tension within the province. It was a very open and frank discussion. We disagreed on several points, but I think important we agreed on the Indonesian government's stated commitment to respect and to improve respect for human rights and the rule of law in Papua. So in that regard we view it as a very important first step.

Lam: So Sam, run through for us the key issues, the key concerns that you raised with Mr Suyanto?

Zarifi: At the initial level and what was promising was an agreement from the Indonesian government with the notion of implementing the special autonomy law of 2001, which includes demands for economic as well as political development in Papua and the coordinating minister really articulated the government's very strong commitment to implementing that. Where we focused was... Amnesty raised really three points with the government, one was a request for the release of political prisoners, that is people who are in detention for non-violent activities, such as raising a flag. We also asked for accountability for violations of human rights in the province. There has been an increase in violence and including at the coordinating minister's admission some violations by security forces. We haven't really seen the proper and proportional disciplining for those. We've seen some administrative sanctions, for instance, imposed on police accused of use of excessive and in fact lethal force, so we really pushed for serious accountability. And finally we asked for the government to put in place some of the commitments it made in 2001 in Papua, including the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a special human rights court to address the grievances of the Papuan people.

Lam: Well, I understand that Amnesty also brought to the attention of the minister its claim that 90 peaceful activists have been detained in Papua. What was the minister's response to this?

Zarifi: Just to clarify, it 90 political prisoners in Papua and Maluku and I think in fact most of them are in Maluku. This is very clear under international law, activities such as raising a flag or non-violently and peacefully advocating for reform, including calls for independence, cannot be the basis of detention. The minister took on board what we said, but he pointed out that under Indonesian law, such activity is criminal. I suppose it's best to say that we agreed to disagree. We pointed out that the criminal law in Indonesia as it stands violates Indonesia's commitments under the covenant of civil and political rights, which Indonesia has ratified and we left the list with the coordinating minister, along with our call that all those political prisoners be released at this point with 2012 coming up in Indonesia, there is really no justification for any political prisoners to be left in Indonesia. I think it's a matter of law, but simply as a matter of Indonesia's politics and international standing, the notion of having political prisoners in Indonesia is unacceptable.

Lam: And just briefly Sam Zarifi, as you say, the meeting was initiated by the Indonesian government. So do you think that while the political will is there at the centre in Jakarta, that this does not always necessarily translate to the military on the ground?

Zarifi: Well clearly, there does seem to be a new impetus in Jakarta for addressing the situation in Papua without resorting to military means. We really encourage that. I think the examples set in Aceh has been promising and I think that is very much in the Indonesian government's mind. We've requested that improvements in human rights be part of the benchmarks for this non-military approach. We're convinced that this will work better, more quickly and more efficiently than any military response and we were encouraged by the coordinating minister's commitment that they would move away from a military response right now.