The Guardian: West Papuans arrested at prayer session for Freedom Flotilla
30 August 2013 Marni Cordell

Four West Papuan community leaders who attended a church meeting to pray for activists aboard the West Papua Freedom Flotilla are to be charged with treason and could be given long jail terms, it emerged on Friday.

The flotilla is sailing from Australia to draw attention to human rights abuses under Indonesian rule and plans to land in the coming weeks in the West Papuan town of Merauke.

West Papuans Apolos Sewa, 53, Amandus Mirino, 56, Samuel Klasjok, 60, and Yohanes Goram, 53, were detained and interrogated for 24 hours in the Sorong police station before being released at 10pm on Thursday night.

“On Wednesday we had a mass prayer session to welcome the Freedom Flotilla from Australia,” Goram told Guardian Australia on the phone from Sorong in West Papua’s west. “The police arrived and arrested us at about 6pm.”

Goram said the group had been questioned about their activities and asked whether they wanted independence from Indonesia.

“We said, ‘yes, we do.’ We told them, ‘We will struggle for independence from Indonesia because we are different from you, and because of the history between our people. More than 200,000 of our people have been killed by your military in the last 50 years, and ours are the poorest provinces in Indonesia.’ ”

The four were told by police that they would be charged with treason but were released on condition that they report to Sorong police station twice a week.

The charge carries a long jail term in Indonesia.