On May 23, the well-known Indonesian activist Yasinta Moiwend went missing from her home in Merauke, South Papua, according to her family. Mama Yasinta, as she is known, has long defended the rights of Papua’s Marind-Anim Indigenous community. She features prominently in a widely celebrated documentary on abuses and land grabs targeting Papuans called Pig Feast: Colonialism in Our Time. Then on May 29, Yasinta resurfaced in Jakarta and – surprisingly – filed a police complaint over her appearance in the film.
The film criticizes the Indonesian government’s policies in Papua, including widespread deforestation to make way for the Merauke“food estate” project promoted by the administration of President Prabowo Subianto.
Yasinta’s relatives fear she was manipulated and coerced into filing the complaint. Appearing with members of Prabowo’s Gerindra Party and the State Intelligence Agency, Yasinta accused the filmmaker and the director of the Merauke Legal Aid Institute (LBH Merauke), one of the film’s producers, of using her images without consent.
The Indonesian police and military have repeatedly tried to block or disrupt screenings of the 95‑minute documentary, which highlights the actions of South Papua’s Marind, Yei, Awyu, and Muyu communities, whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by large-scale land acquisitions.
Since April, authorities banned dozens of screenings of the film, including at three universities on Lombok Island. A planned screening in Yogyakarta was canceled after the host received threats. The military dispersed a screening organized by journalists on Ternate Island. Officers from the intelligence agency turned up at a screening on Sumbawa Island.
Gen. Maruli Simanjuntak, chief of staff of the Indonesian Army, said the military’s disruption of the screenings in several regions was based on “security considerations.”
Meanwhile, as Mama Yasinta appears to remain under authorities’ surveillance, her family has appealed to Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission to ensure her safety. John Teddy Wakum of LBH Merauke, who represents her in two separate legal challenges to the land grab in Merauke, told Human Rights Watch, “There are certainly outside parties trying to divert the public attention from structural problems in South Papua to these individual matters.”
The authorities should immediately end any harassment of Mama Yasinta and stop disrupting screenings of Pig Feast. A powerful documentary is no basis for depriving Papuans of their rights to freedom of expression and association.
