Rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday urged
Indonesia to investigate the use of "deadly force" by police who shot
dead one protester and injured six others at a mining protest.
Indonesian security forces opened fire Monday on workers
striking over wages at a mine run by US company Freeport McMoRan in remote
Papua province, Amnesty said in a statement.
Mine worker Petrus Ayemseba died after being shot in the
buttocks and six others were injured in the shooting, it added.
"This latest incident shows that Indonesian police have
not learned how to deal with protesters without resorting to excessive, and
even lethal, force," Amnesty's Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi said in a
statement.
"The police have a duty to protect themselves and uphold
the law, but it is completely unacceptable to fire live ammunition at these
protesters," he said.
Zarifi called for the Indonesian authorities to launch an
"independent and impartial" investigation and make the results
public.
Monday's violence was sparked when police tried to stop more
than 1,000 workers -- who began their strike on September 15 -- from entering a
facility at the sprawling Grasberg complex, one of the world's biggest gold and
copper mines, a union official said.
But PTFI, Freeport's local subsidiary, said the workers had
tried to stop other colleagues from returning to work.
Police said they had fired warning shots into the air after
the workers pelted them with stones, injuring seven police officers.
Production at Grasberg was slashed by 230,000 tonnes a day in
the first week of the strike last month, representing daily losses of $6.7 million
in government revenue.
PTFI is the largest single taxpayer to the Indonesian
government.
The mine workers, who are mostly indigenous Melanesians, are
demanding that their current minimum wage of $1.50 an hour be raised to $12.50.
Source : AFP
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