London – Indonesia failed to take decisive action to end human rights violations last year, Amnesty International said Wednesday. The London-based rights watchdog, in its report on 2002, said the country showed "little progress" in its attempts to tackle impunity in human rights cases. It also said there was an increase in the use of repressive legislation to arrest and imprison prisoners of conscience.

Amnesty said the rights situation in Aceh and Papua, the scenes of armed separatist revelts, "remained grave." In Aceh it accused both the military and the rebel Free Aceh Movement of serious violations. "Efforts to find a peaceful solution to political and other grievances in Papua continued to be undermined by human rights violations by the security forces," Amnesty said.

It said human rights defenders in both provinces continued to be subjected to abuses including extrajudicial executions, torture and unlawful arrests as well as threats and harassment.

In general, it said, "attempts to tackle impunity in human rights cases made little progress as political resistance and legal and institutional weaknesses continued to undermine investigations and trials of those suspected of human rights violations."

Amnesty criticised proceedings at a human rights court set up to try suspects in the 1999 violence in East Timor. The court has so far acquitted 12 of the defendants and jailed five others, who remain free pending appeal. Another is awaiting a verdict.

Amnesty also reported an increase in the arrest and imprisonment of "prisoners of conscience" based on what it called repressive legislation concerning insults to the head of state.