Human Rights Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland In September 2025, the European Union signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Indonesia. It is an agreement with an estimated value of €27 billion in trade between the European Union and Indonesia. I want to raise with the Minister of State a concern regarding the issue of West Papua. West Papua comprises the western half of the island of New Guinea, and it borders Papua New Guinea to the east. It has been governed by Indonesia since it was invaded in the 1960s, with over 500,000 people killed since then in military operations. Since Indonesian control was established, there has been consistent and fierce resistance by the native population. The legitimacy of its rule is claimed by Indonesia through a widely condemned sham referendum, known as the Act of Free Choice, in 1969, where Indonesia itself selected over 1,000 voters and decided they would vote on the future of the entire territory, with the threat of force hanging over it. Since that sham referendum, human rights abuses in West Papua have been rampant, with the killing and torture of the civilian population, a crackdown on freedom of speech and expression, a complete lockdown on international journalists entering the territory, which is one of the reasons it gets so little attention, and the taking of political prisoners among those who show support for the West Papuan cause. The Indonesian army continues to act with impunity, denying civil liberties and respect for the indigenous peoples of West Papua. Within the text of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, there is language that reaffirms that the signatories of the agreement are obliged to be committed to human rights and have regard for the principles articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the agreement does not set out any actionable or enforceable conditions tied to market access to make sure that human rights abuses are not happening. Those abuses continue. In 2022, a UN report indicated that between April and November 2021, allegations of several instances of extrajudicial killings, including of young children, enforced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment and forced displacement of at least 5,000 indigenous Papuans by the security forces were received. The report in question estimates that the overall number of displaced individuals could range from 60,000 to 100,000 people. There is a very clear disconnect between what has been agreed by diplomats in the European Union and on the Indonesian side and what is actually taking place on the ground. As of June 2026, more than 125,000 people remain internally displaced in West Papua due to armed conflict and military operations. There are consistent reports. I get weekly updates on extrajudicial killings and the Indonesian security forces' active displacement of entire villages and populations in an effort to intimidate and silence any dissent, or even any reporting of what is happening in this territory. The European Union is claiming that human rights are part of what it does. It is putting this language into its agreements. We know, sadly, that it is not delivering on that language in terms of Israel and Gaza, as we have seen. As a minimum, it should be learning that when it is bringing in new agreements, it should be a little more robust regarding how the human rights component will be addressed. I would ask that before this new agreement comes to be enacted, which is due to happen during Ireland's EU Presidency, for which we have claimed values will be a central pillar, for a comprehensive human rights review and audit into the situation in West Papua ahead of the scheduled ratification of this EU-Indonesia agreement in early 2027, when our Presidency comes to a close. We need to get ahead of these human rights issues and make sure that they are centrally audited and accounted for prior to tying ourselves into yet further complicity with human rights abuses. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:11+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-09