July 2013 – A study tour of the Saharawi towns of southern Morocco and the occupied territory of Western Sahara has reported to MINURSO about their findings as human rights observers from France, Germany and Australia.

The main purpose of the tour was to test the right of Saharawi political prisoners to receive mail. Through the campaign “Write for their release” (Ecrirepourlesliberer.com), letters sent through the post are known not to reach them, so letters were brought to four prisons to deliver in person to the director of the prison. Only one accepted the letters and promised to pass them on to the prisoners.  The delegation also met the families of the prisoners and gave them a copy of the letter sent to their family member.

All the experiences of excessive surveillance, interference with the itinerary and the consequences visited upon Saharawis who receive international delegations are noted.

“We witnessed a whole people under siege, whose resistance is getting stronger even though Morocco’s repression continues”, said the leader of the delegation, Claude Mangin-Asfari, wife of Saharawi political prisoner, Enaâma Asfari, one of the Gdeim Izik group of prisoners.

Study tour report to MINURSO >>

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT, 12 September 2013

Revelations published this week by a Spanish team of forensic experts confirming the deaths of eight Sahrawis, including two children, who disappeared in 1976 and providing unprecedented evidence that they were extrajudicially executed by Moroccan armed forces underscore the continuing need to uncover the full truth about hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance from previous decades and to ensure justice for victims and their families. (…cont.)

Amnesty Public Statement  >>

MEHERIS: A possibility of hope – Mass graves and the first Sahrawi disappeared who have been identified
Carlos Martín Beristain, Francisco Etxeberria Gabilondo
Hegoa, Bilbao, Septemer 2013

The document contains the findings of a forensic and research team, working together with a genetic laboratory at the University of the Basque Country, on a case of Sahrawi missing persons in Fadret Leguiaa in the region of Samra, near Amgala and Meheris, in February 1976.
…..The issue of the disappeared during the armed conflict and violence against Sahrawi civilians is still present in the lives of their families (cont

Read report in full >>

Green Left Weekly,Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Minetu Larabas Sueidat is a young Saharawi woman living in refugee camps in Tinduf in the south-west of Algeria….she describes the lives and struggles of Saharawi people, forced to live as refugees and continuing to struggle for their freedom. She can be contacted at: [email protected].

“As a young Saharawi woman who born and lives in exile away from the land of my ancestors, I wish to share with the world the hard life that my people, especially my generation, have to deal with in the Saharawi refugee camps here in Tinduf.
Five years ago, I met with amazing group from Australia who came to attend Saharawi Workers Congress in the Saharawai refugee camps,…”  (cont.)

Read more  >>

June, 2013. Copyright © 2013 Human Rights Watch

The HRW report covers six cases of which 2 are important Saharawi ones, viz the Casablanca 7 and Gdeim Izik group.

HRW summary of report findings >>

Read full report here >>

wsahara.org.uk , May 2013
SAHARA ANALYSIS   No: 77

Despite a well supported international campaign the UN Security Council voted not to monitor human rights violations on April 25th . The Moroccan Government will continue to wage its campaign of systematic violations of the rights of the Saharawi – MINURSO will remain a silent on-looker.

Read more >>

16 May 2013

Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme
“Reports that the Moroccan authorities subjected these six detainees – including a child – to torture and other ill-treatment to extract ‘confessions’ are deeply disturbing. The allegations must be thoroughly investigated, with those responsible brought to justice.”

Read more >>

U.S. State Department.Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 : Western Sahara

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Morocco claims the Western Sahara territory and administers Moroccan law through Moroccan institutions in the estimated 85 percent of the territory it controls. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario), an organization that has sought independence for the former Spanish territory since 1973, disputes Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over the territory.(…cont.)

Read report >>

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”