New political prisoners, treason charges and lack of judicial transparency in political prisoner cases

17.12.2019: Cyber Attack on Papuans Behind Bars

On 22 and 23 November, the Papuans Behind Bars project experienced a considerable DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) online attack against their website after it had published this report:

You can now download this report at: www.papuansbehindbars.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/PBB-Jan-2018-Oct-2019-Nov2019.EN_.web_.pdf

The EU based web host GreenNet is hosting several websites of human rights and other civil society organisations. It had a large part of its servers and hosted websites shut down due to the attack in late November. GreenNet reports: "We spotted that the attacks lasted almost exactly an hour each time, so which indicates that it was likely to have been a "DDoS for hire". We were able to glean strong circumstantial evidence that we believe shows that the target was an organisation that was publishing a new research report that weekend Papuans behind Bars. We noted that PBB work in a region where similar attacks had been carried out, and that suspicious checks on the website's availability were made immediately following the start of the DDOS attacks."

Over the past years, we have seen several websites from organisations and media in and outside Indonesia reporting about the human rights and conflict situation in West Papua become targets of similar cyber-attacks. We call for your support by taking note of the Papuans Behind Bars report, distributing it widely and by standing in solidarity with peaceful civil society actions online that face such attacks. Human rights work online needs more protection and West Papua more attention.