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Papua New Guinea’s independence leaders have condemned Indonesia’s election as President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, due to ongoing human rights violations and restrictions in West Papua by Indonesia’s military forces.
Photo source: Asso Myron, via Unsplash, March 27th, 2018.
23-01-2026 | Roberta Moisuc | Asia Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence.
Papua New Guinea’s independence leaders have criticised Indonesia’s election of President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, due to ongoing human rights violations in West Papua, a territory under strict control by the Indonesian government.
The President of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, described the recently acquired leadership role in Geneva by Indonesia as incompatible with international human rights obligations, arguing that Indonesia’s continued and long-standing occupation of West Papua and its daily breaches of international law should disqualify Indonesia from leading the Council.
Indonesia annexed the region in 1963, and the territory’s sovereignty has since been highly contested. Violations relating to Indonesia’s ongoing military operations have been canvassed by human rights defenders, with over 105,000 West Papuans currently displaced from tribal lands due to the operations.
Outside access to Papua remains tightly controlled for foreign non-governmental organisations, humanitarian groups, media, and even diplomats. These conditions have allowed for the suffering of indigenous groups, with ongoing reports over the past two months that have included the formation of militias in regional centres, torture of Papuan activists by Indonesian security forces, the killing of three civil state officials by Indonesian police, isolated shootings of Papuan citizens by military personnel in West Papuan capital, and cases of grave torture against an Indigenous man by the military.
In his statement, the president of the ULMWP expresses the following:
Every time Indonesia launches a new plantation or mine on occupied territory, the human rights of nearly 2 million Indigenous Papuans are violated. Every time a West Papuan is arrested and beaten for chanting for freedom, the Act of No Choice is repeated on a smaller scale. There is no democracy in West Papua. We have no rights as Indigenous people, as black people, as Christians.
The ULMWP continues to advocate for justice and demands that Indonesia opens West Papua up to journalists and allow for the UN to visit the territory.
