Jakarta - Indonesian police have arrested 18 suspected rebels in the country's easternmost province of Papua for hoisting a separatist flag, officials said Tuesday.

The detainees allegedly raised the "Bintang Kejora," or "Morning Star" flag on a street outside the office of the independent Papuan Customary Council in Papua's Timika Kwamki Baru sub-district, about 100 meters from a police precinct station.

Besides nabbing 18 men, the police also confiscated a number of home-made spears and knives during a raid on houses in the neighbourhood, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

Timika's district police chief, Godhelp Mansnembra, said the men were being questioned and likely would be prosecuted under subversion laws.

Anyone convicted of hoisting of the outlawed separatist flag faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Despite the government's harsh penalties, pro-independence activists and sympathizers of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM) have frequently hoisted the symbol of the separatist movement, in particular to commemorate the anniversary of the province's independence day.

The OPM, comprising a small group of separatist rebels, have been fighting a sporadic rebellion in Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, since the early 1960s.

Papua, a predominantly ethnic Melanesian province 3,700 kilometres north-east of Jakarta, is a former Dutch colony that became an Indonesian province in 1964. (dpa)