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Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, left, walks with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 23, 2024.
© 2024 AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim
(Sydney) – Australian leaders should discuss human rights issues with Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo during meetings in Canberra on August 20, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. Australia should seek commitments from Prabowo to uphold religious freedom, protect Indigenous and religious minorities, and revise government policies that discriminate against women and girls, people living with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Prabowo, presently Indonesia’s defense minister, won the presidential election on February 14, along with outgoing President Joko Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice presidential running mate. He is in Canberra in advance of his inauguration on October 20 to discuss a defense pact between Indonesia and Australia, which will be signed later in Jakarta. But he will also meet with the Australian prime minister and foreign minister.
“Australian government leaders should urge Prabowo to fulfill the human rights-related commitments that previous Indonesian administrations had made but failed to meet,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “These include some difficult issues such as the mandatory hijab rules, the crackdown on LGBT people, and the government’s unwillingness to allow foreign journalists and United Nations officials to visit West Papua.”
Prabowo, 72, is a former son-in-law of Soeharto, Indonesia’s authoritarian president from 1965 to 1998. Prabowo, a former special forces commander, was dismissed from the Indonesian army in 1998 for kidnapping student activists. Earlier, he had been indicted for the Kraras massacre in East Timor in 1983 but failed to answer a summons from the UN Special Prosecutor’s Office in Dili. A UN-sponsored report on East Timor accused him of commanding massacres that resulted in the deaths of as many as 200 Timorese men, accusations that Prabowo denied.
In their meetings with Prabowo, Australian leaders should set out key human rights expectations, Human Rights Watch said. These should include delivering on human rights commitments made by previous Indonesian governments, including those made to the UN Human Rights Council during Indonesia’s Universal Periodic Review, and implementing the recommendations of UN human rights bodies. Indonesia should also issue a standing invitation to UN experts to visit Indonesia.
Australian leaders should also raise concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indonesian provinces of West Papua. Ongoingabuses against Indigenous Papuans include killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and mass displacement of people. The UN estimated that since the escalation of violence in December 2018 between Indonesian security forces and West Papuan militants, some 60,000 to 100,000 Papuans have been displaced. The authorities arrested nearly 250 people for joining protests against racism and discrimination against Papuans across over 30 cities in West Papua in 2019. At least 100 were jailed for “treason” between 2019 and 2022.
Australia’s leadership should urge Prabowo to renew the Indonesian government’s 2018 invitation to the UN human rights office to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation. A previous meeting was delayed because of disagreements over timing and personnel.
“Australian leaders should not let Prabowo’s egregious rights record deter them from forcefully raising current human rights concerns,” Gavshon said. “They should emphasize that the new president has an important opportunity to restore Indonesia’s standing on West Papua and other human rights issues.”
