Thursday 17 May – 6.30pm to 8.30pm at Sydney Mechanics School of Arts 280 Pitt St Sydney

$10 entry / Students by donation
Music, Drinks and Nibbles
Organised by Australia Western Sahara Association and Sydney University Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

Join us for an evening with Saharawi human rights activist, Malak Amidan, as she talks about the situation in Western Sahara, one of the longest and most neglected conflicts of our time.

Malak will expose the systematic political, environmental, social and cultural human rights abuses endured by the people of Western Sahara

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Event flyer.pdf >>

Malak Amidan >>

Green Left Weekly, Thursday, April 26, 2012
By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, Adelaide

Sahrawi human rights advocate and trade unionist Malak Amidane will visit Australia this month to share her experience of campaigning for justice in her homeland.

Read article >>

European Parliament resolution of 18 April 2012 on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World and the European Union’s policy on the matter, including implications for the EU’s strategic human rights policy

“91. Recalls its resolution of 25 November 2010 on the situation in Western Sahara; condemns the ongoing repression of Sahrawi people in the occupied territories and calls for their fundamental rights, including freedom of association, freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate, to be respected; calls for the release of the 80 Sahrawi political prisoners and, as a matter of priority, of the 23 who have been held without trial in Salé prison following the dismantling of the Gdeim Izik camp; reiterates its call for the establishment of an international mechanism to monitor human rights in the Western Sahara and for a fair and lasting settlement of the conflict on the basis of the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people, in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions;”

European Parliament resolution >>

Press Release from the Polisario Front Representation for Europe

Read and view the actions around the world under the MINURSO 2012 banner at http://minurso.tumblr.com

Carne Ross
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 April 2012

The Arab Spring began in the Western Sahara. In late 2010, the indigenous Saharawi population of this territory demonstrated against the occupying Moroccan authorities. Their demonstrations were violently put down. Eleven Saharawis were killed.

Read more >>

The Australia Western Sahara Association (AWSA) organised on Friday 13 April 2012 in front of the French Consulate in Melbourne a protest under the slogan: human rights for Western Sahara – the time is now!
Some of the protesters were dressed as the three monkeys which embody the proverbial principle to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. They represent the way in which the United Nations has turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in occupied Western Sahara, most notably, France

Continue reading →

Human Rights Documenter
Posted 25 March 2012

By Carmela Baranowska, Journalist and Filmmaker

Read post >>

The Hindu, Opinion, April 2, 2012
Aman Sethi
The story of El Haked, the Moroccan rapper who defied his monarch.

“The Spiteful One sits on a floor mattress eating cheese and scrambled eggs straight from a frying pan on a table on the first floor of an abandoned slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Casablanca….cont.
Full report >>

26 March 2012. AWSA President Lyn Allison on behalf of AWSA has written to the Secretary General of the United Nations, about monitoring of human rights in occupied WS.

The letter emphasises the fact that MINURSO – the UN mission in Western Sahara – is the only UN peacekeeping mission established since 1978 without a mandate to monitor human rights. This means that Morocco has been able, with impunity, to occupy Western Sahara and subject the Saharawis to arbitrary arrest, disappearances, false imprisonment, unfair trials, torture and the death penalty

26 March 2012 AWSA letter to Security Council >>