NOWHERE TO TURN: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAILURE TO MONITOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN WESTERN SAHARA AND TINDOUF REFUGEE CAMPS

Press Release:  US leads movement to add human rights monitoring to the region’s 20-year-old UN peace-keeping mission

(Washington, DC – April 18, 2013) The RFK Center announced the release of a new report detailing grave human rights violations—including summary execution, enforced disappearance, torture, and arbitrary arrest—against the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. On the eve of the report’s release, and just one week after the United States took historic action in drafting a human rights monitoring mandate for the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, RFK Human Rights Award Laureate Aminatou Haidar, known as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” was placed under increased police surveillance.

Read RFK Center Release

Read the full Report “NOWHERE TO TURN”

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Thu Apr 18, 2013 1:53pm BST

(Reuters) – France, Morocco’s traditional protector on the U.N. Security Council, is unlikely to use its veto to block a U.S. proposal to have U.N. peacekeepers monitor human rights in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, envoys said.

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By Louis Charbonneau and Aziz El Yaakoubi

UNITED NATIONS/RABAT | Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:29pm EDT

(Reuters) – The United States has proposed that the U.N. peace-keeping mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara help monitor human rights there, U.N. diplomats said on Tuesday, an idea that has prompted an expression of regret from Morocco.

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Human Rights Watch, April 17, 2013

To: All Members of the UN Security Council
Re: MINURSO Renewal

Dear Ambassador,

Human Rights Watch urges the Security Council, when it votes on renewing the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) this month, to extend the mandate to incorporate human rights monitoring in Western Sahara and in the Polisario Front-run refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria. (…cont.)

Letter to Members of the Security Council >>

Security Council Should Allow Monitoring for Violations
Philippe Bolopion, UN director, Human Rights Watch
April 17, 2013
(New York) – United Nations Security Council members should task the United Nations with monitoring human rights violations in Western Sahara and in the refugee camps around Tindouf, in Algeria, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to all 15 Security Council member countries.

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Morocco: Tainted Trial of Sahrawi Civilians – Military Court’s Judgment in Case Based on 2010 Western Sahara Clash
April 1, 2013

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, states that “While the loss of life at Gdeim Izik is deplorable, the prosecution failed to establish after 26 months of pretrial detention for most defendants a credible case that they were responsible for the violence…..Time and again, we have seen Moroccan prosecutors appear at politically sensitive trials not with physical or witness evidence establishing the guilt of defendants, but mere confessions obtained under questionable circumstances.” (cont. )

Human Rights Watch report >>

Agence France-Presse March 25, 2013
Moroccan police violently dispersed a protest by separatists in the Western Sahara, Algerian TV and rights activists reported on Monday, during a visit to the disputed territory by UN envoy Christopher Ross.

The independent Ennahar TV channel broadcast images of plainclothes Moroccan police beating Sahrawi men and women in Laayoune, chasing them through the streets and dragging some of them along the ground.

Full report >>

Video of Moroccan secret police beating and harassing Saharawis during the visit of UN Secretary General Special Envoy Christopher to occupied Western Sahara 21 to 24 March 2013.

Watch video >>