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Local activists cry foul over arrest of Pinoy NGO worker in Indonesia

By atm.admin - Posted on July 6th, 2010
Local activists today decried what they said were unprovoked arrests,
by the Indonesian police of over a dozen participants, including a
Filipina, of a training activity held in the state of West Java in
Indonesia.

“We denounce in the strongest possible terms the unwarranted arrest of
Ms. Jean Marie Ferraris by misguided elements of the Indonesian police,
who apparently barged into a peaceful press conference being held after
a training activity organized by our friends from Greenpeace,” Judy
Pasimio of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, a legal and
policy research NGO known for its work on indigenous peoples rights and
natural resources issues.

Ferraris was among a group of 13 international NGO workers who were
arrested by Indonesian authorities while holding a press conference in
Cirebon, West Java regarding the harmful impact of coal plants on the
environment and local communities.


“Jean was merely there to share the experience of our own partner
communities who are also facing the threat of coal mining and
environmental degradation from coal-fired power plants. She entered
Indonesia legally and was attending a legitimate activity organized by
an internationally-recognized

environmental NGO. Her arrest and the arrest of the other participants was completely unjustified,”Pasimio said.

“Clearly Indonesia still hasn’t completely shrugged off its
authoritarian past. This latest episode evokes the time of Suharto when
the coercive power of the state, through the police and the military
were used to sow terror and choke democratic space. This abusive
behavior has no place in a supposedly democratic country,”Pasimio said.

The arrests, were conducted by some 100 Indonesian police officers who
were reportedly accompanied by representatives of the coal power plant
operated by Cirebon Elektrik Power Ltd.

“We call on our government to act swiftly to effect the release of Ms.
Ferraris and demand an immediate explanation from the Indonesian
government. The new administration of Pres. Aquino must send a strong
message to the international community that it is committed to
protecting our citizens from abuses committed on foreign soil, even if
it is by a foreign government, ”Pasimio added.

For reference

--
Erwin B. Quinones
Campaigns Paralegal
Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center
Kasama sa Kalikasan
Friends of the Earth Philippines
(LRC/KsK-FoE Phils)

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COMMENT RULES:

Hi everyone,

I'm the national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), the owner of this site.

We will always respect views and opinions posted on this site, as much as we encourage open discussion and intelligent debate on the issue of mining. ATM has its stand on this issue very clearly, and we welcome the comments from those who do not agree with us.

However, we have observed that in the past few days, this forum has gone way beyond acceptable behavior of netiquette.

I will request and strongly encourage all posters to at least follow the following rules:

1. Be civil. Basic courtesy and privacy norms should be practised by posters in this forum. Make your mom at least proud by showing you still remember to be polite, even if you're not required to say "po" or "opo" in every post you make. We wouldn't mind that either, if you do so. Then again, I am assuming here that you're already an adult.

2. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. This also applies to flaming. Just in case you don't know what flaming is, its deliberately insulting or personally ranting against a poster (or a thread) simply because you are losing the arguments.

3. Avoid being anonymous. Since you have enough time to post long comments, you would at least have a few seconds to type even an alias. You also help people conclude that you are not a paid hack from a PR firm by Intex (or any other mining company)

4. Do not shout in the forums. Do not use ALL CAPS in your posts. A single exclamation point should also suffice.

We will observe the forum in the next few days. Should these rules be disregarded, we will transform this into a minimally-moderated forum. We hope we will avoid the situation that we will decide to make this a closely and strictly moderated forum. We value everyone's insights so much.

We'll check up again on this new rules after a short while. Of course, we expect the Intex ECC to be revoked in a few days. In this case, I suspect that the "excitement" in this thread would have died down.

Jaybee Garganera
National Coordinator
ATM
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