•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

As a rights group on Thursday accused the police of possible serious human rights violations in last month’s Sape shooting that left at least two protesters dead, the police punished five officers with just three days of detention each for their roles in the incident.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said on Thursday that it had found a number of instances of violence in the incident in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, that could be classified as serious rights violations.

Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar submitted the commission’s findings to House of Representatives Commission III, which deals with legal and human rights affairs.

“The conclusion is that there are grounds to suspect that there were serious violations of human rights in Bima,” he said. “I am certain it was systematic, there was a leader, there was a command, there was a force mobilization.”

Police officers moved into Sape on Dec. 24 to clear out protesters who had occupied the port to protest an exploration permit that had been awarded to a gold mining company.

Kontras said in its report that officers and ambulances were deployed to the port despite any written orders. The protesters, it said, were not endangering the police in any way — even opening the port gate to officers — but were still attacked.

“There was shooting at close range — about 10 to 15 meters — even though” there was no resistance from protesters, the report said.

It added that with snipers deployed and residents warned not to leave their homes, the violent attack was clearly planned.

Kontras estimated that between 500 and 700 security personnel had been deployed to the port.

Meanwhile, in Mataram, the capital of West Nusa Tenggara, a police disciplinary tribunal sentenced five officers to three days of detention each. They were given written reprimands and stays of training that ranged from one to three months.

The five officers — three members of the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) and two of the police intelligence unit — were found guilty of beating and kicking protesters when the police moved in to clear the port.

Police prosecutors had demanded seven days of detention and a seven-month training stay for the officers.

Outside the West Nusa Tenggara Police headquarters, where the trials were held, students from the Anti-Mine People’s Movement held a protest, calling for the chief of the Bima district police to be fired and for harsh punishments for the officers.

In Jakarta, National Police spokesman Insp, Gen. Saud Usman Nasution said that a third person who the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) claimed had also been killed in the shooting at the port had actually died of an unspecified stomach problem and was not a protester.

However, Komnas HAM commissioner Ridha Saleh said that the man’s older brother had found his brother “lying in front of their house with his body covered in mud and a bloody behind. They had taken part in the protest and the mud had come from the ponds that are near the port.”

Sutan Bhatoegana, from House Commission VII, which deals with energy, mineral resources and technology, said on Thursday that he would call for the formation of a working committee “to get the right information” on the mine at the core of the conflict.