From correspondents in Dili – East Timor's government must urgently act to stop police torture and other ill-treatment of detainees before the practice becomes widespread, a Human Rights Watch report said today.
Dozens of witnesses and victims of police abuse in the world's youngest nation interviewed by HRW said that beatings and torture were routine, with several detainees having to be hospitalised.
"We were shocked to find so many credible accounts of torture and severe ill-treatment by police officers," Brad Adams, the HRW Asia director, said in a statement announcing the report's release.
One man arrested in Maliana told the rights watchdog that he was repeatedly beaten during a two-day incarceration. "I was continuously tortured, sprayed with pepper spray, beaten and drenched with water. They constantly threatened me, saying: 'If you oppose the police, then you will know the consequence'," he said according to the statement.
"On the first night they beat me at around 1am, on the second night they beat me around 3am. Both nights were different people, but both times they were beating me," he said.
The government and independent oversight bodies have failed to take reports of police abuse seriously or discipline officers, HRW said.
"East Timor's leaders are ignoring police abuse when they should be taking urgent steps to end it," Mr Adams said.
"East Timor won independence in part because of Indonesia's horrific record here. Now some people are saying that the new police force is no better than the old one, and this should worry the government."
The watchdog called for international donors to express their concern to the government and increase support for the independent monitoring of police violence and for agencies providing services for victims.
It also urged donors to fund and plan long-term strategies on capacity-building, training, and other support to the police force.
"This report should serve as a wake-up call to the government and donors," Mr Adams said. "This young country can avoid emulating its former colonial master, but only if concerted action is taken now."
Indonesia occupied East Timor for 24 years, with its rule ending after East Timorese voted for independence in a 1999 UN-backed referendum. Military-backed militias sacked the country in response, killing an estimated 1400.
After three years of UN stewardship, East Timor became the world's youngest nation in 2002.
East Timor's independent Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation has found that at least 102,800 Timorese died as a result of the occupation through massacres, disease or starvation.
United Nations civilian police trained East Timor's police force, which took full control of policing operations in December 2003.