Indonesia, West Papua – On 10 August 2025, police officers from the Teluk Bintuni Police Department arbitrarily arrested two young women, Mrs Aksimina Muuk,20, and Mrs Derina Mosoum, 20, at Bintuni Bay Port, Papua Barat Province, along with a five-month-old infant and a five-year-old boy, Wene Husage.
Mrs Mosum was six months pregnant at the time of arrest. The group had been travelling from Sorong City to Bintuni. The police alleged that items found in their luggage, a T-shirt bearing the Morning Star symbol and camouflage-patterned trousers, were linked to separatist activism. Both women are related to Barnabas Muuk, a wanted pro-independence figure, but there is no evidence linking them to any criminal act. Despite repeated attempts by family members to visit the detainees at the Bintuni Police Station on 10 and 11 August 2025, the authorities neither allowed access for the relatives nor provided a legal basis for the detention.
On 10 August 2025, at approximately 3:00 pm, the two women and two children disembarked from a passenger vessel at Bintuni Bay Port from Sorong, where Derina had received medical treatment. Upon arrival, officers from the Bintuni Police stopped and searched them, reportedly finding the clothing items bearing the Morning Star motif and camouflage pattern. Thereupon, police officers detained the women and children at the Bintuni Police Station. According to the relatives, the police gave them 30 minutes to contact an alleged TPNPB commander in Teluk Bintuni, demanding he return a firearm reportedly taken during the 2018 killing of a Brimob officer. Officers threatened to transfer the detainees to Manokwari if the weapon was not returned. No arrest warrants were presented. On 11 August 2025, the human rights organisation KontraS West Papua publicly condemned the detention, highlighting its arbitrary nature and urging the police to immediately release the detainees. Police officials later stated they were "secured" for questioning rather than formally detained.
Human rights analysis
The incident constitutes a case of arbitrary arrest and detention, prohibited under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Indonesia is a party. The detention of two mothers, one of whom is pregnant, and two children without charge or judicial oversight also contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), particularly Articles 37(b) and 3(1), which require detention of minors to be a measure of last resort and mandate that the best interests of the child be a primary consideration.
The police's attempt to use the detainees as leverage to secure the return of a firearm constitutes collective punishment, a practice explicitly prohibited under international human rights law. The refusal to allow family visits and to disclose the legal basis for detention further violates the right to prompt access to family and legal counsel, protected under Principle 15 of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment.