Target: activist

A believer in Papuan independence? Care about the Papuan people? The Indonesian government will put you on their hit-list:

Parliamentarians, union leaders and academics have been included on an Indonesian government list of prominent Australians supporting Papuan separatism.

The list also contains the names of a swathe of activist groups.

It was prepared by a group of senior Indonesian MPs with input from the country’s intelligence agency, known as the Badan Intelejen Negara, or BIN.

Australian Greens senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle, Democrats senators Andrew Bartlett and Natasha Stott Despoja, and former ALP national president Greg Sword head the list.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sydney University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology also appear on the list, as well as the federal parliament’s group on West Papua and the peak Australian Council for Overseas Aid.

Activist groups in Australia named included Australia West Papua Association, the Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, West Papua Action Australia, the East Timor Action Network and the West Papua Project at the University of Sydney, headed by Peter King.

Professor Stuart Rees, who heads Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, was also singled out, along with activist nun Sister Susan Connolly from the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies.

Other prominent Australians included Tasmanian federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr and Barbara Flick, from the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists.… 

Making the list is a badge of honour.

I hope I’m on some Israeli government list. The Jewish state doesn’t seem to like dissent.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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