Category Archives: Human Rights

U.S. proposes U.N. Western Sahara rights monitor; Morocco warns of “missteps”

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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Letter to UN Security Council on Western Sahara

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 >>

HRW reports on UN/Western Sahara: Give Peacekeepers a Human Rights Mandate

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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Human Rights Watch report deplores lack of due process in trial of Sahrawi civilians at Gdeim Izik

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 >>

Morocco police attack Sahrawis during UN visit: Algeria TV

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 >>

MEPs call on Schulz to condemn colleagues expulsion from mission to Western Sahara

(ANSAmed) – STRASBOURG, MARCH 12 – The Western Sahara House Intergroup on Tuesday called on European Parliament President Martin Schulz to condemn Morocco’s March 6 expulsion of four MEPs.

Moroccan authorities expelled Slovenian liberal Ivo Vaigl, leftist Spaniards Vicent Ramon Garces and Willy Meyer, and Swedish People’s Party MEP Isabella Lovin from Casablanca airport, preventing their mission to the Western Sahara, where they were to meet with local representatives.

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Morocco’s Ambassador to the U.N. responds to a documentary about the country’s treatment of the Sahrawi people

CNN International Edition,  March 6, 2013
Interview by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

Moroccan Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Mohammed Loulichki, responds to a documentary “Sons of the Clouds – The Last Colony”, presented by award-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem about the conflict over Western Sahara, the last remaining colony in Africa.

Video interview with Moroccan Permanent Representative to the UN, Mr. Mohammed Loulichki >>

“Sons of the clouds” screened in the Australian Federal Parliament House

event.jpgTuesday 12 March 2013, Parliament House, CanberraThe Australian Parliamentary Friends of Western Sahara organised an event in support of Western Sahara at the Federal Parliament on 12 March 2012.

The event included a special screening of “Sons of the Clouds – The Last Colony”, a documentary presented by award-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem about the conflict over Western Sahara, the last remaining colony in Africa.

Janelle Saffin Member of Parliament and Chair of the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Western Sahara opened the event with a speech in which she said:

“Tonight, in the name of Western Sahara, we welcome diplomats, parliamentarians and the press to our film viewing.

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