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Bio
The Lani Singers hail from the remote central highland region of West Papua. Deeply emotive and compelling, their songs are rooted in the sacred rituals of the Lani tribes people – a tribe whose way of living has remained largely unchanged since the Stone Age.
About
The Lani Singers music also conveys a powerful modern day message - the struggle that their fellow people endure under a brutal and illegal Indonesian occupation. Since 1963, over 400,000 native West Papuans have been murdered by Indonesian military and countless others have ‘disappeared' in one of the world's worst ongoing yet largely unreported cases of ethnic cleansing.
Leader of the Koteka Tribal Assembly, Benny Wenda was imprisoned by the Indonesian authorities for being an independence figurehead within West Papua. He miraculously managed to escape from prison, and fled through the jungle to neighbouring Papua New Guinea five years ago, where his wife Maria and their young children were by now living in a refugee camp by the border. They were then brought to the UK where they are now re-settled and run the Free West Papua Campaign, spreading awareness about the plight of their people, and campaigning for West Papua's independence.
These are their songs of freedom. Merdeka! Freedom!
To find out more information about the ongoing situation in West Papua and get involved in campaigning, please check these websites www.freewestpapua.org and www.infopapua.org



The Lani Singers










