The Inner West Council marked the 47th anniversary of the declaration of the Saharawi Republic by raising the Saharawi flag.

The flag-raising ceremony was attended by Inner West Councillor Kobi Shetty, Kamal Fadel, Polisario Representative Australia and New Zealand, Lesley Osborne, Secretary of the Australia Western Sahara Association (AWSA) and members and friends of AWSA.

More than 2,200 members of the Saharawi liberation movement Polisario and 370 foreign guests attended the Polisario 16th Congress held in Dakhla camp (13-20 January).
The Polisario’s current head, Brahim Ghali, was re-elected at the gathering, which comes at a critical time for the movement. The delegated agreed to give the armed liberation struggle priority and intensify the fight against Morocco.

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Middle East Monitor, January 19, 2023

Morocco is embroiled in a corruption scandal that is engulfing the European Parliament. So far, at least four individuals have been arrested and charged with “participation in a criminal organisation, money laundering and corruption,” the prosecutor has said. The four remain in prison.
In Australia, we are aware that Morocco has organised several paid visits to Morocco and Western Sahara by parliamentary representatives in order to influence Australian members of parliament. Morocco did succeed in obtaining Australian government agreement to open an embassy in Rabat some years ago. However, there is no embassy in Algiers, although Algeria is a country that Australia has more business with than Morocco!

Read more: Middle East Monitor

The representative of the Polisario Front in Australia, Kamal Fadel, participated in the Palestine solidarity conference held in Melbourne in January 2023.

The Palestine Solidarity Conference brought together a diverse range of people who are passionate about the Palestinian and Saharawi cause, and are interested in campaigning, organising, and advocating for the just causes. Over three days, participant engaged in workshops and plenaries, and explored avenues in which the movement can work together to achieve a bigger and more sustainable impact.

A workshop was organised on the striking similarities between the issue of Western Sahara and the Palestinian cause.

Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), 13 October 2022.

For the first time in 6 years, a cargo of conflict minerals is heading its way to Australia, expected to arrive on 18 October. On 12 October a group of Saharawi refugees protested against the shipment. The demonstration took place in one of the Saharawi refugee camps in the middle of the Algerian desert where half the people of Western Sahara have sought refuge after Morocco brutally invaded their land. (cont…)

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Alex Whitehead
Honi Soit, August 7, 2022

The continued colonial occupation of Western Sahara is rife with state-sanctioned human rights abuses, brutality, and ethnic cleansing. Still, within the state, resistance thrives.

Western Sahara, a territory situated in the North-West of Africa’s Maghreb, has been left behind by history. A victim of Moroccan ideas of national restoration and Spanish colonial objectives, the nation, which is home to almost 200,000 Indigenous Saharawi people, still struggles to decolonise (cont).

Article by Alex Whitehead…

https://peoplesdispatch.org/, October 10, 2022
by Pavan Kulkarni

The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) became “hostage to the Moroccan authorities,” unable even “to report on the human rights situation in the territory,” said Kamal Fadel, Western Sahara’s representative to Australia and the Pacific…

Report from Pavan Kulkarni

Kerry Smith, Green Left Weekly, Issue 1363, October 5, 2022

According to Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), Australian company Incitec Pivot (IPL) confirmed in a meeting with Australian trade unionists on September 27 that it is expecting a delivery of phosphate rock exported by Morocco from occupied Western Sahara.

Green Left Weekly article