Police Arrests Environmentalists During World Ocean Conference

Tempo Interaktif 12 May 09;

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Manado Police arrested two environmetal activists after a rally during the World Ocean Conference in Malalayangan beach North Sulawesi on Monday (11/5). Berry Nadian Forqan and Erwin Usman of Indonesia Friends of the Earth were threatened to be charged for preventing police duties after being questioned for about nine hours on Monday.

The organisation was one among 14 environmental organisations that organised rally of hundreds of fishermen near the beach to call for the conference to produce policies that ensure protection for traditional fishermen.

The conference, attended by around 72 countries, was started on Monday and will be concluded on Friday.

FERY FIRMANSYAH | CORNILA DESYANA | EKO ARI WIBOWO | MARIA HASUGIAN

Indonesia to deport activists over ocean protest
Yahoo News 12 May 09;

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia will deport 15 Philippine activists on Tuesday after they held a protest with local fisherman near the venue of a global conference on ocean conservation, officials said.

Police broke up the demonstration Monday at a beach near Manado, Sulawesi island, where the World Oceans Conference is under way this week.

"They didn't have any permits from police to stage a rally," immigration ministry official Pramela Pasaribu told AFP.

The activists were calling for more involvement of local stakeholders in the five-day conference, which has gathered senior officials and experts from 70 countries, she said.

Eleven men and four women from the Philippines will be sent home later Tuesday.

Rally spokesman Riza Damanik said the protest was peaceful and was held about an hour's drive from the conference venue.

"Coastal communities and fishermen are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. They should be involved in this conference in order to get a better result," he said.

Indonesia deports 15 Pinoy fishing activists
Inquirer 13 May 09;

MANILA, Philippines—Fifteen Filipino fishermen and fishing activists were briefly jailed as they were attending a discussion parallel to the World Ocean Conference in Manado, Indonesia, and were eventually “forced to leave” by immigration authorities and local police Tuesday.

Arsenio Tanchuling, of the Tambuyog Development Center, said he, two fellow Tambuyog members, and 11 fisher folk leaders from Kilusang Mangingisda were about to share the experience of small fishers in the middle of the May 10 to 13 conference when they were arrested and detained for 12 hours.

“It seems that there is no place for small scale fisheries in the world’s oceans,” he said.

Tanchuling said Berry Nahdian Furqan, national executive director of Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Walhi), was also arrested.

The draft Manado Ocean Declaration, expected to be signed by conference participants on May 14, contains no mention of small scale fishers despite the fact that they make up more than 95 percent of the fishing industry and play a crucial role in managing fish stocks and coastal ecosystems, such as coral reefs, mangroves, and sea-grass beds.

Tambuyog said small-scale fishers are projected to be one of the sectors that would be hit hard by impacts of the climate change, the theme of the World Ocean Conference.

That’s why small-scale fisher leaders, led by Kilusang Mangingisda of the Philippines and the Komite Persiapan Nelayan National Indonesia drafted a rights-based development agenda for fisheries and marine resources that includes community-based coastal resources management spearheaded by small scale fisher organizations.

The agenda also includes a comprehensive technical and financial support proposal for the formulation and implementation of climate change adaptation plans in coastal communities throughout the Southeast Asian region.

Over this snub of small fishers’ concerns, Tambuyog and its allied organizations complained that they were even harassed, detained, and denied their basic human rights to be heard and to peaceful assembly.

Tambuyog and Kilusang Mangingisda both belong to the Southeast Asia Fish for Justice Network (Seafish), a regional network of fisher folk and non-government organizations conducting an International Forum on Marine and Fisheries Justice at the Kolongan Beach Indah Hotel.

Earlier, participants to this international forum held a mass action along the beach in Malalayang where Seafish criticized both the World Ocean Conference and the Coral Triangle Initiative Summit for not covering small fishers in their discussions.

Walhi and its organization in Sulawesi Untara, together with the Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (Kiara), hosted the discussions on small fishers, as well as the mass action.

Seafish counts among its members organizations from Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Activists in the dock over protests
Jongker Rumteh, The Jakarta Post 13 May 09;

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director Berry Nahdian Furqon and water and food campaign manager Erwin Usman stood trial Tuesday, following their public protest of the inaugural World Ocean Conference (WOC) and Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) Summit in Manado.

They were charged with violating Article 216 of the Criminal Code on public order.

Presiding judge I Made Sukanada said the trial of the two activists would have to be postponed, pending the summoning of two witnesses put forward by the defendants' lawyer.

"They staged a rally of protest, had an oration at Malalayang Beach, and refused to desist when the police came to disband the action," he said.

"They were deemed to have caused a public disturbance."

Made added that should the activists be found guilty, they could face a maximum sentence of 20 weeks in jail.

The prosecution witness presented in Tuesday's hearing was the local police's Comr. Sudjarwoko, who testified that the event staged by Walhi violated regulations because no permit had been requested for it earlier.

"We negotiated three times, asking for proper documents, but they did not respond. They even taunted us to settle the matter in court," he said.

Outside the courthouse, dozens of protesters rallied in support of the activists.

Similar shows of solidarity also took place in Denpasar and Bengkulu.

The Walhi protest was spurred by a gathering of some 200 fishermen from 17 provinces and four Southeast Asian countries at Malalayang Beach on Monday at 9 a.m. local time (8 a.m. in Jakarta) to hear the reading of the "Manado Declaration".

Two hours later, the police broke up the gathering and arrested Berry and Erwin.

Early Tuesday, 16 Philippine activists and members of the Manado Alliance were deported for attending the "illegal activity", although some were official delegates at the WOC and CTI Summit.

In its statement, the Manado Alliance said the activists were grouped under SEAFISH, an important civil society network that has been very outspoken against injustices toward traditional fishermen in Southeast Asia.

The alliance demanded the summit take notice of its five key issues: The initiative must ensure human security from climate change impacts; the conference should be able to guarantee access and control of resources for traditional fishermen; industrial nations and multilateral financial institutions must be responsible for ecological debts caused by Indonesia's resources exploitation; bilateral and multilateral agreements issued at the summit must be able to respond to the food crisis caused by climate change; and finally, a demand for the legal settlement of problems in the ocean sector, including illegal fishing and overfishing by foreign vessels, and land-based pollution caused by foreign mining companies.