Jayapura – The fatal shooting of an activist of the KNPB, Hubertus Mabel, has been condemned by his family and by the KNPB – National Committee of West Papua – as unlawful. According to the law, if a person is deemed to be engaged in unlawful acts, he should be arrested and charged before a court of law but this did not happen in the case of Mabel and his colleague.

A spokesman for the KNPB, Wim Medlama, said that Hubertus had been immobilised by being shot in the legs. The security forces then pushed him into a police van where he was tortured and stabbed.

When he was arrested along with Natalis Alua, the two of them did nothing to resist arrest yet nevertheless they were shot.

"We understand," said Medlama, "that Hubertus was severely beaten and stabbed in the chest. Natalis was also badly injured and is now being treated in hospital," said Medlama. He accused the security forces of acting without having any thought for the lives of their victims. "The security forces behaved like sadists and won't even allow members of his family or his KNPB colleagues to see his body or demand an autopsy."

Hubertus and his colleagues were not involved in the attack on Pirime Lanny Jaya. His activist colleagues believe that the police were feeling very frustrated and had opened fire on Hubertus and his colleague out of a sense of revenge for the deaths of three members of the police force who died during an attack on the Pirime police station.

"The scenario was to convict Hubertus for showing resistance but this is simply not true. According to the law, a person should be taken into custody and brought before the court, not shot dead. When taking someone's life, the police should be able produce powerful evidence before taking the law into their own hands like this," said Medlama.

If Hubertus did violate the law, he should be tried, not shot dead as happened to Mako Tabuni.

"What the security forces are trying to do is to stamp out the issue of Papua Merdeka but the way they behave is having precisely the opposite effect, making Papuans more determined than ever to achieve an independent Papua."

"For every single Papuan who is murdered, a thousand Papuans will rise up and struggle for their freedom," said Medlama

"They have accused us of being terrorists but we don't have any bombs yet the allegations still persist. We have no idea what other tricks the security forces have up their sleeves in order to discredit us and the people of Papua", he said.

[Translated by TAPOL.]