Media Release
November 28th, 2017

Morning Star to Fly over Christchurch

The Morning Star, the flag of the West Papuan Liberation Movement, will fly over Christchurch City on Friday with the active support of the City Council.

“To have Council join us on such an important day is very encouraging” said WPA~C convenor Brian Turner, “the tradition of raising the Morning Star on the first of December has until recent times been the preserve of a handful of human right activists. Now as knowledge of the Pacific’s shameful genocide grows the outrage has entered the mainstream”.

The Morning Star was first flown on December the first 1961 and has, since the Indonesian invasion and brutal occupation in 1963, been a symbol of resistance.

To mark the occasion a short ceremony will be held at 12.30pm on December 1st at the Commons. The key note speaker will be Poto Williams Christchurch East MP.

Earlier in the year eleven parliamentarians from four parties signed the Westminster Declaration which calls for West Papua’s right to self-determination to be legally recognised through an internationally supervised vote.

Christchurch City Council passed its resolution of support in September.

“The current situation in West Papua is alarming” added Turner “gross state-sponsored human rights violations are a daily occurrence - to do nothing is to be complicit – to actively engage with such repressive regimes is to participate”

We are confident that with this cross party and now local body support, the incoming government will cancel the recently concluded defence relations agreement with Indonesia and will instead champion the cause of West Papuan independence in international forums.

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