© Survival InternationalSurvival International and other organisations reporting on human rights in West Papua have come under a massive cyberattack. The attacks came one week after a shocking video showing Indonesian soldiers torturing Papuan tribal people was released.
Starting with a test attack at 5pm (London time) on Wednesday 27 October, and building to a very sophisticated ‘distributed denial-of-service’ onslaught that evening, many thousands of PCs around the world simultaneously bombarded Survival’s website, knocking it temporarily offline. The attacks have since resumed.
Similar attacks occurred during Survival’s campaign against the Botswana government, after the Bushmen were evicted from their traditional lands.
Other organizations that hosted the torture video have also had their websites attacked:
Friends of People Close To Nature
West Papua Media Alerts
Asian Human Rights Commission
Free West Papua Campaign
West Papua Unite
The Indonesian government has admitted that the men seen torturing two Papuans in a video released on the internet this week are soldiers. The minister for security said the soldiers would be punished. An investigation into the incident is continuing.
The video footage, believed to have been taken in May this year in the highland region of West Papua, shows an elderly man stripped naked, a plastic bag being forced over his head, and screaming in agony as a burning stick is held to his genitals.
The Indonesian army has a long history of human rights violations against the Papuan tribal people.
Survival International is calling on Indonesia to enter into an open dialogue with the Papuan people about their future, and to allow human rights workers and journalists, who have long been barred, into Papua.
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