21 August : Press release

On Thursday 23 August Kerry Kennedy of the Robert F Kennedy Center and Mary Lawlor, Founder and Executive Director, Front Line Defenders will take part in a high level delegation to Western Sahara to assess the human rights situation on the ground in both Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.

Read article and press release >>

Overland : Online Blog, 24 July 2012

Carmela Baranowska writes about Robbed of Truth: The Western Sahara Conflict and the Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking (directed and produced by Carlos González)

Fetim Salam is a refugee who lives in a remote and inhospitable part of North Africa. She is one of an estimated twelve million refugees worldwide. However, her life is neither obscure nor forgotten. Fetim Salam is represented in two recent documentaries, Stolen (directed by Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw; produced by Violeta Ayala, Dan Fallshaw and Tom Zubrycki) and Robbed of Truth: The Western Sahara Conflict and the Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking (directed and produced by Carlos González)

Continue reading ‘Who speaks for Fetim Salam?’ >>

20 July 2012: BBC News report confirms hostages freed

A prisoner exchange enabled three European aid workers held hostage to be released on Wednesday in Mali, negotiators have revealed.

“It was a release in exchange for a release,” said Gen Gilbert Diendere, who headed the mediation team, according to Reuters news agency.

BBC report >>

MADRID/BAMAKO (Reuters) – An Italian and two Spanish hostages were freed in northern Mali on Wednesday by the al Qaeda-linked MUJWA Islamist group, the Spanish government said on Wednesday.

The three aid workers were seized in a refugee camp near Tindouf, Algeria, last October and were then believed to have been transferred to northern Mali, which is now controlled by a mix of Islamist groups.

Read more >>

New Statesman, 6 June 2012
by Tom Stevenson

What does Morocco mean to an Englishman?” George Orwell asked in one of his finer essays. “Camels, castles, palm-trees, Foreign Legionnaires, brass trays and bandits.” That was 1939. But whatever Morocco means to an Englishman today it probably isn’t “occupation, refugees, and landmines”.
Morocco is a standard tourist destination and is held up as a model for Arab and African development alike. It may, therefore, come as something of a shock to hear that Morocco is the only African country excluded from membership of the African Union (Madagascar, Mali, and Guinea-Bissau have all been “suspended” since 2009 and 2012 respectively).

Read more >>