{"id":1762,"date":"2017-01-29T22:06:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T22:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/?p=1762"},"modified":"2023-12-15T19:27:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T19:27:15","slug":"global-petition-for-freedom-in-west-papua-launched-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/?p=1762","title":{"rendered":"Global petition for freedom in West Papua launched in London"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A global petition calling on the United Nations to put West Papua back on its decolonisation list has been launched in Britain: Source<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"(L<\/p>\n

(L to R) Tim, Tom and Joel from Swim for West Papua, Maria Wenda, Benny Wenda, Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP, Peter Tatchell, Lord Harries. <\/span> Photo: International Parliamentarians for West Papua<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The petition is open to people all around the World up until August, when a team of British swimmers plan to swim it 69 kilometres across Lake Geneva to present it to UN Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, Benny Wenda, said the swim would highlight the West Papuan struggle as a humanitarian issue rather than just a Pacific or a Melanesian one.<\/p>\n

Along with the Swim for West Papua event, the petition was launched this week by the Free West Papua Campaign.<\/p>\n

It calls on the UN to appoint a special representative to investigate the human rights situation in West Papua and for an internationally supervised vote on self determination.<\/p>\n

Free West Papua said the aim of the petition was to demonstrate the growing international support for West Papuans to have the opportunity to decide their own future.<\/p>\n

It said this would also build on growing diplomatic backing for a supervised vote.<\/p>\n

Such a vote was described as being in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolutions 1514 and 1541 [XV].<\/p>\n

While Jakarta said human rights problems in Papua are largely confined to the past, indigenous Melanesians of this region have claim there was a slow motion genocide being perpetrated in their homeland by Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, co-founder of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, shared a message of support from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu which decried the lack of international media attention on West Papua.<\/p>\n

He also commended the Swim Team and called for solidarity with the West Papuan people saying ‘we may live in different regions of the world, but we are one family’.<\/p>\n

Lord Harries then declared the petition open for signing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"West<\/p>\n

West Papuan people showing their support from inside the prison in Timika for the Global Petition for West Papua. <\/span> Photo: Benny Wenda<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A global petition calling on the United Nations to put West Papua back on its decolonisation list has been launched in Britain: Source (L to R) Tim, Tom and Joel from Swim for West Papua, Maria Wenda, Benny Wenda, Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP, Peter Tatchell, Lord Harries. Photo: International Parliamentarians for West Papua The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-free-west-papua-campaign","category-united-nations-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1896,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions\/1896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infopapua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}