Indonesia: Racism, Discrimination Against Indigenous Papuans

Ensure Access to Health Care, Education, and Livelihoods in West Papua

(Jakarta) – The Indonesian government’s suppression of widespread protests after a 2019 attack on Papuan university students highlighted longstanding racial discrimination against Indigenous Papuans in Indonesia, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The authorities should address Papuans’ historical, economic, and political grievances instead of prosecuting them for treason and other crimes for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly and release those wrongfully held.

The 80-page report, “‘If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?’: Discrimination and Other Abuses Against Papuans in Indonesia,” finds that the protests, built around the Papuan Lives Matter social media campaign, were centered on human rights violations against Papuans, including denial of the rights to health and education, and peaceful calls for sovereignty for West Papua, where most Indigenous Papuans live. The report profiles cases of Papuan activists convicted for their role in the protests and the baseless charges brought against them. 

“The racism and discrimination that Papuans have endured for decades only began to get attention from Indonesian authorities after the widespread protests in 2019,” said Andreas Harsono, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should act on the many United Nations recommendations to end human rights violations in West Papua and permit international monitors and foreign journalists to visit the territory.”

Between June 2023 to May 2024, Human Rights Watch met several Papuans to discuss the day-to-day discrimination they encounter and conducted 49 in-depth interviews with Papuan activists who were arrested and prosecuted after the Papuan Lives Matter movement began in 2019. In addition, Human Rights Watch interviewed lawyers, academics, officials, and church leaders. 

On August 17, 2019, Indonesian security forces and a mob of ultranationalists attacked a Papuan university student dormitory in Surabaya. Video footage of the attack, which included racial insults, was shared widely on social media, sparking a movement called Papuan Lives Matter, inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States. Protests broke out in at least 33 cities in Indonesia. While the protests were largely peaceful, in some places there were clashes between communities, arson attacks, and even deaths.

Indonesian police and military used excessive force and arrested many protesters, particularly targeting anyone who raised the Morning Star flag, a symbol of Papuan independence that is considered illegal in Indonesia. Papuans Behind Bars, the website that monitors politically motivated arrests in West Papua, recorded over 1,000 arrests in 2019, and 418 between October 2020 and September 2021. At least 245 people were convicted of crimes, including 109 for treason. Indonesia’s laws against treason are used mostly to target Indigenous Papuans campaigning for their rights, including for independence.

Human Rights Watch takes no position on claims for independence in Indonesia or in any other country, but supports the right of everyone to peacefully express their political views, including for independence, without fear of arrest or other forms of reprisal.

In June 2022, the Indonesian parliament enacted a controversial law, splitting the territory of two provinces—Papua and West Papua—into six new provinces. Based on the preference of Papuan activists, Human Rights Watch uses West Papua to discuss the entire territory. Many Papuans believe that creating these new administrative units will bring more non-Papuan settlers, decreasing the proportion of Indigenous Papuans living in their own land. Indonesian authorities have already encouraged and subsidized tens of thousands of non-Papuan settler families—pendatang in Indonesian—to relocate to West Papua through decades of transmigration programs, often driving out Indigenous Papuans and grabbing their land for mining and oil palm plantations. 

Local and national authorities discriminate against Indigenous Papuans in favor of settlers in delivering health services and education in West Papua, Human Rights Watch said. Areas with Indigenous Papuans have far fewer medical clinics and schools. The authorities also favor the pendatang in government jobs, whether as teachers, nurses, or in the police and military. Meanwhile, Papuans living in other parts of Indonesia encounter discrimination and racist tropes in gaining access to jobs, education, or housing.

Agus Sumule, a lecturer at the University of Papua in Manokwari, who led research on education in West Papua, noted much lower school attendance among Indigenous Papuans in rural areas, and found that there is not a single teacher training college in the Central Highlands, where almost all the residents are Indigenous Papuans. He said: “If it’s not racism, what should I call it?”

Human Rights Watch also found that police torture and abuse Papuan activists, using racist slurs. A video posted earlier in 2024 to social media showed three soldiers brutally beating Definus Kogoya, a young Papuan man, whose hands were tied behind him and who had been placed inside a drum filled with water, taunting him with racist slurs.

The fighting between Papuan pro-independence insurgents and the Indonesian security forces is contributing to the deteriorating human rights situation in West Papua. Indonesian security forces engage in arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, and mass forced displacement, but are seldom held to account for these abuses. The insurgents have been implicated in the killings of migrants and foreign workers and have been holding a New Zealand pilot hostage since February 2023.

When President Joko Widodo, known as “Jokowi,” was elected president in 2014, many had hoped for human rights reforms in West Papua. Ten years later, at the end of the president’s second and final term, little has changed in Papua. A new government, led by Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo, will take office in October 2024. It should urgently review existing policies on West Papua, recognize and end the government’s history of systemic racism against Indigenous Papuans, and hold to account those responsible for violating their rights, Human Rights Watch said.

Indonesia is a party to core international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. These treaties all prohibit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion, among other grounds. The discriminatory policies and practices Human Rights Watch documented also constitute violations of Indigenous Papuans’ rights to health and education. Among key standards is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination, including to autonomy or self-government in their internal or local affairs. 

“The Indonesian authorities should address the demands of Papuan activists and tackle the systemic racism against Indigenous Papuans,” Harsono said. “The Indonesian government needs to finally recognize that international human rights law applies in West Papua and meet its obligations to the people there.”