Event description
Please join us as we launch the West Papua Project at the University of Wollongong for a seminar about West Papua at the United Nations now About this Event
In 1969, the United Nations was mandated to oversee the Act of Free Choice in West Papua, a plebiscite intended to gauge whether indigenous West Papuans wanted independence or continued integration with Indonesia. The referendum, in which Indonesian security forces coerced West Papuans to vote against independence, was a sham, but the United Nations turned a blind eye to the injustice. Since that time, West Papuans have been petitioning the United Nations to right that historical wrong and to investigate subsequent decades of human rights abuses in the territory. Over the past two years, countries around the world have joined West Papuans in calling for an investigation. The purpose of this seminar is to hear and collect information about human rights abuses occurring in West Papua now which can be u