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 >>

A system has been set up to report human rights abuses in the occupied territory of Western Sahara.

Since the UN is failing to do this, it is important to publicise what has been recorded by a consortium of human rights organisations around the world, and within the Occupied Territory.

WESTERN SAHARA CROWDMAP >>

Mar 08, 2012
By Fernande van Tets, Giulia Zuzic and Sarah Clark

Part 4 in a 4 part series on Women’s Rights.

In honor of International Women’s Day, The InterDependent takes a look at the progress made in gender equality.

Read Part 4 – Western Sahara; women’s rights >>

Press Statement
Manhasset  March 13, 2012

The ninth round of negotiations between the Frente Polisario and the Kingdom of Morocco, took place from March 11 to 13, 2012 at Greentree (Manhasset) under the auspices of the Personal Envoy of UN Secretary General, Mr. Christopher Ross.During this round, the negotiations focused on the proposals of both parties and the ideas contained in paragraph 120 of the report of the Secretary General.
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Read Aljazeera Opinion article in full >>

Green Left Weekly, Sunday, March 11, 2012

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim & Laura Gilbie

After two decades of political deadlock, Africa’s oldest refugee population is losing faith in UN mandated peace negotiations.
“No one will give us our freedom — we must take it!,” Sahrawi journalist Embarka Elmehdi Said told Green Left Weekly.
Said sees little hope for a peaceful resolution to the crisis that has gripped Western Sahara since its independence from Spain in the 1970s.
A child when her family fled the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara in 1975, Said has spent most of her life in the Polisario run refugee camps on the Western Sahar-Algeria

Read GLW article >>

Green Left Weekly, Sunday, February 5, 2012

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim & Laura Gilbie

The Sahrawi people continue to demand independence after decades of poor treatment under Moroccan rule. Many Sahrawi report being routinely subjected to police brutality and say they suffer widespread discrimination.

Activists in Laayoune face a day-to-day struggle with local authorities. The city is touted by the Moroccan government as a regional development hub, but from the ground looks more like an infantry barracks.

The police station is like an enormous shopping mall. Soldiers are everywhere, patrolling the main streets. ….(continued)

Read full article

Pambazuka News Feature by Malainin Lakhal
2012-01-19, Issue 566

This is a transcript of the lecture by Malainin Lakhal, secretary general of Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union, presented during a conference organised in Cairo, Egypt, from 15 to 17 January 2012 by the Habitat International Coalition under the title: ‘Sovereignty over the land and peoples’ right to self-determination’.

Read article and transcript >>

Human Rights Watch: World Report 2012
January 22, 2012
(Rabat) – Morocco’s new government should overhaul repressive domestic laws, curb police violence, and enhance judicial independence if it is to realize the human rights promises contained in the country’s new constitution, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2012. Substantial progress in these areas will prove the sincerity of the reforms announced by King Mohammed VI in response to street protests in Morocco and major upheavals elsewhere in the region in 2011.

HRW  Statement >>

HRW World Report 2012: Morocco and Western Sahara>>