Chair of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP), Alex Sobel MP, this week met the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Volker Turk in Geneva while at the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The pair discussed the OHCHR visit to West Papua, which was first promised by Indonesia’s then-President Joko Widodo in 2019. Mr Turk confirmed that he has not been issued an invitation to visit West Papua during his term of office. Alex Sobel will continue his engagement with Volker Turk to ensure a UNHRC visit goes ahead
Over six years have passed since Indonesia’s initial promise to facilitate UN access, and 113 UN member states have now called for the High Commissioner to be allowed to visit West Papua. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) made the initial demand in 2019, labelling West Papua the ‘festering human rights sore’ of the Pacific region. This has since been followed by demands from the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), the EU Commission, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), and individual nations including Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, and the USA.
Hundreds of thousands of West Papuans have been internally displaced by intensified Indonesian military operations since 2019. After six years of refusals, and the completion of two consecutive High Commissioner terms, it is clear that Indonesia is systematically blocking the UN from accessing West Papua.
The IPWP recently issued a letter of protest against the recent appointment of Indonesian Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodiporo as President of the UN Human Rights Council, stating, “given Indonesia’s ongoing violation of their obligations as a UN member state, we consider their Presidency of the UNHRC an insult to the fundamental principles of the UN itself”.
