A human rights group speaking in the name of indigenous populations of Alaska and Hawaii seek UN intervention to organize self-determination referenda in the US states, saying Washington has illegally occupied it since 1959.

The group is to raise the issue during next week’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, reports TASS.

Both territories were listed in 1946 as Non Self-Governing Territories under article 73 of the UN Charter. The status theoretically subjected Alaska and Hawaii to decolonization. In both referenda were held over whether they would become fully-fledged states of the USA, which both did in 1959.

Critics of the transition, including the Alaska-Hawaii Alliance for Self-Determination, accuse the US federal government of failing to hold the ballots properly, which they say should have involved offering and explaining to the people the option for becoming an independent state rather than part of the US.

RT