A report about the conditions of detention of the one woman member of the group of 7 held in Sale prison near Rabat, Edehja Lachgar is attached. It provides a circumstantial account of what it’s like inside prisons and for the families trying to visit.
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9 December 2009 Agence France Presse
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Tuesday called for Western Sahara activist Aminatou Haidar, who is on a three-week-old hunger strike at a Spanish airport, to be allowed to go home.
Haidar has consumed only sugared water since November 16….
Read UN statement >>

The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID)  is an independent national association of Australian non-government organisations (NGOs) working in the field of international aid and development. ACFID’s membership is composed of 75 NGOs.

ACFID made on 8 December 2009 the following statement in support of Aminatou Haidar:
“The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) joins many
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Note: The letter needs to go tomorrow, 10 Dec, international human rights day.

Email the attached letter to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Mrs Navanethem Pillay, tomorrow. Contact details:

United Nations High Commissionioner for Human Rights:
Mrs Navanethem Pillay
address: Palais Wilson, CH 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
tel: (41 22) 917 31 34
fax: (41 22) 917 90 50
email: [email protected]

Attachment: Letter to UN Human Rights High Commissioner

Scottish writer Paul Laverty and British director Ken Loach issued a joint statement on December 1st (commemorating the anniversary of Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat for a white passenger) in support of Western Saharan human rights activist Aminatou Haidar.  Haidar is in the third week of a hunger strike after being deported against her will by Moroccan authorities occupying her homeland.  You can watch Democracy Now!’s coverage of Haidar’s plight here.

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Stephen Zunes | December 2, 2009
Editor: John Feffer,  Foreign Policy In Focus
The annual Robert F. Kennedy Award ceremony took place at the White House this year for the first time in its 28-year history. Also for the first time, the president of the United States was there to honor the awardees.

Read article by Stephen Zunes >>

In Third Week of hunger strike, ailing Western Saharan human rights activist Aminatou Haidar demands Moroccan authorities allow her return to occupied homeland.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks to Mouloud Said, Washington, DC representative of the Polisario Front; Guillermo “Willy” Toledo, Spanish actor in Lanzarote airport speaking out in support of Aminatou Haidar and Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco Professor and co-author of the forthcoming book “Western Sahara: Nationalism, Conflict, and International Accountability.”

Transcript of discussion >>

The hunger-strike of Nobel Prize nominee Aminatou Haidar has drawn the attention of the world to the plight of Western Sahara, but will the Moroccans cede to international pressure?
Reporter: Stefan Simanowitz
Holiday-makers arriving in Lanzarote airport look on with curiosity at the frail woman lying in a nest of blankets on the floor airport terminal. Few of them are aware that they are looking at the world-renowned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amainatou Haidar, now in the third week of a hunger strike.
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