JATAM | Mining Advocacy Network

Around 100 misguided members of the Indonesian police apparently barged into a peaceful press conference in Cirebon, West Java, held after a training activity organized by internationally-recognized environmental NGO Greenpeace, regarding the harmful impact of coal plants on the environment and local communities.  The police officers were reportedly accompanied by representatives of the coal power plant operated by Cirebon Elektrik Power Ltd.

Among the arrested group of 13 international NGO workers is Filipina Miss Jean Marie Ferraris, a campaigner from the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (“LRC”), a legal and policy research NGO known for its work on indigenous peoples rights and natural resources issues, and a member organization of RIMM.

Miss Ferraris – and the other Asian environmental activists – was in Indonesia to share the experience of  communities that are facing the threat of coal mining and environmental degradation from coal-fired power plants. Their entry in the country was legal, and the activity organized by Greenpeace was legitimate.  The environmental activists are still being held at the Indonesian immigration office.

We join the call for the Indonesian Government to shrug off its authoritarian past, and to refrain from sowing terror and choking democratic space, and to immediately release all the environmental activists.

We join the call for the Philippine Government to act swiftly to effect the release of Ms. Ferraris and to demand an immediate explanation from the Indonesian government.  

We join the call for the new administration of Philippine President Aquino to send a strong message to the international community that it is committed to protecting its citizens from abuses committed on foreign soil, even if it is by a foreign government.

In Solidarity,