The tragic news of the attack on lawyer Yan Christian Warinussy happened Wednesday, July 17, 2024, has reached the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) in the middle of the last phase of the session on State and Environmental Violence in West Papua, held at Queen Mary University on June 27-29.
As director of the Legal Aid, Research, Investigation and Development Institute (Lembaga Penelitian, Pengkajian dan Pengembangan Bantuan Hukum, LP3BH), Warinussy opened the first day hearing illustrating the root causes of the injustice, discrimination and impunity suffered by the indigenous peoples in West Papua since the decolonization. The speech he gave was central to depicting the continuity of the past and current violence committed against defenseless civil population and the environment in the region. During the three days of hearings, the PPT has listened to several testimonies in support of his opening speech and of the indictment submitted to the panel of judges.
We cannot fail to link Wednesday’s attack, fortunately unsuccessful, to the permanent risk to which human rights defenders are facing for their work in exposing the extremely critical situation of the region, as, among other things, has been reported by several United Nations agencies. The PPT’s panel of judges also recognized this risk in the statement issued immediately after the conclusion of the public hearing and attested the extreme courage witnesses and prosecutors put forth in the legitimate quest for truth and justice in West Papua.
In addition to expressing its profound condemnation of those materially and even more so of those institutionally responsible for the attack, the PPT general secretariat states that this event will be examined for the panel of judges’ final judgment in order to make visible the situation of vulnerability of human rights defenders in West Papua and affirm, at the same time, the recognition of the inviolable rights of West Papuan peoples to a life in dignity.
The PPT joins the outrage that many national and international organisations are expressing in these hours and calls on the government to take urgent action to investigate with impartiality what happened and to protect the lives and integrity of Warinussy and the human rights defenders in West Papua.
Gianni Tognoni and Simona Fraudatario, PPT general secretariat