West Papua, also known as Western New Guinea, is the western half of the island of New Guinea. The Netherlands ruled the area until the 1962, after which the land was controversially transferred to Indonesia. Activists have called for decades for West Papua to secede from Indonesia and establish an independent nation. The Indonesian government has repeatedly denied the movement’s demand and criminalized its existence.
Filep Samuel Karma was one of the prominent Papuan political activists. He had previously been imprisoned in 1998 for his activism. In November 2004, he organized and participated in a ceremony at which several hundred Papuans gathered to raise the Papuan Morning Star flag and celebrate the anniversary of the 1961 Papuan declaration of independence from Dutch rule.
Although Filep has explicitly denounced the use of violence, he was arrested and charged with treason. He was sentenced in May 2005 to 15 years in prison.
His case was highlighted in an op-ed written by his daughter in the Wall Street Journal. Numerous organizations have cited Filep’s wrongful detention, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which has designated Filep a prisoner of conscience. In addition, numerous members of the U.S. Congress have called for his release, and the U.S. State Department has cited Filep’s status as a political prisoner. A bipartisan group of 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives called for Filep’s release in August 2011. Six members of the House later called on then-Secretary of State John Kerry to raise the case during his trip to Indonesia in June 2015. Freedom Now later followed up with its own letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Freedom Now and Hogan Lovells filed a petition with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in May 2011 on Filep’s behalf. The Working Group determined in November 2011 that his detention violated international law.
Filep was released from prison on November 19, 2015, four years before the end of his sentence. Not long after his release, Freedom Now presented the UN Human Rights Council with a report on human rights in Indonesia prior to its universal periodic review.
In November 2022, Filep passed away in an apparent diving accident.