Two Australian and a Canadian Citizen who visited the Tamil Sri Lankan refugees have been detained and taken into Indonesian police custody today.
They were arrested in a street on the way to visit the Tamil asylum seekers who are currently still in Jaya Lestari, the boat that they used to take them to Australia. The boat was seized by the Indonesian navy and moored in Merak, Western Java, Indonesia, since Oct 2009. The boat was seized after Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister phoned Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian President and personally requested the Indonesian government to intercept it.
The two Australian citizens are Pamela Curr of the Asylum seeker Resource Centre and Sara Nathan, refugee activist from Sydney. The Canadian citizen is from the Humanitarian Appeal for the Relief of Tamils (CanadianHART). They were taken into custody by the Indonesian police officers to Merak Marine Police Station soon after arriving in Merak.
We failed to reach the Indonesian police officer who detained the activists.
"Their arrest is intolerable; they went there to help the asylum seekers who fled from prosecution in Sri Lanka. Kevin Rudd's government must stop using other country's security apparatus to arrest human rights activists and free the refugees" said Madhuni Kumarrakulasinghe, a refugee activist from Australia-Tamil Solidarity.
The Indonesian authorities early this month threatened the asylum seekers to be forcibly disembarked from the boat.
There are 247 Tamil Asylum seekers on the boat. Amongst them there are 31 children, 29 women (one of whom is 7 months pregnant) and 187 men. On 23 December 2009, George Jacob Samuel Christin, a 29 year asylum seeker died on the boat after vomiting blood for two days and being refused medical treatment by Indonesian authorities.
For more information about the detainment, contact:
Madhuni Kumarrakulasinghe, 0415693121
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