RED POWER MEDIA

Jubilant crowds celebrate the release of prominent Papuan political prisoner Filep Karma.

By Red Power Media, Staff

A high-profile West Papuan dissident leader has been released from prison after more than a decade behind bars for raising a flag.

Political prisoner Filep Karma walked free from jail in Papua, Indonesia last week, after spending 15 years in prison — charged with treason — for raising the banned West Papuan independence flag.

According to a Survival International article, Karma, 56, was arrested in 2004 after leading a peaceful demonstration in West Papua, calling for independence from Indonesia and raising the “Morning Star flag.”

He was named by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. His detention was condemned as “arbitrary” by the United Nations.

In August this year when the government of Indonesia offered him a pardon in exchange for admission of guilt.

Amnesty International wrote, Karma refused because he felt it would…