Category Archives: Political issues

Luxembourg pension fund blacklists six firms over Saharan imports

Published Western Sahara Resource Watch: 19.11 – 2014

A Luxembourg government fund has excluded six companies from its portfolios due to “association to illegal exploitation of natural resources (Western Sahara)”.
On 15 November 2014, the Fonds de Compensation commun au régime général de pension (FDC), published the list of 61 companies that it has decided to blacklist. No less than six of those companies have been rejected because they purchase phosphate from Moroccan occupied Western Sahara.
Two Australian companies, Incitec Pivot and Wesfarmers, are complicit in this exploitation of Saharawi resources and are included in the FDC blacklist

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January 2015: African Union adopts important decisions on WS

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Twenty-Sixth Ordinary Session   23 – 27 January 2015
Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA

DECISION ON THE THIRTY-SEVENTH ACTIVITY REPORT OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS
Doc.EX.CL/887(XXVI)

The Executive Council,

10. REITERATES its serious concern at the continued illegal occupation of the territories of Western Sahara which could not be visited by ACHPR in line with Executive Council Decision on the matter, DEMANDS expeditious implementation of the various relevant United Nations and African Union Resolutions to actualize as early as possible the long awaited self-determination of the Saharawi people; in that regard, Council RECOMMENDS that AU organize some of its activities in the liberated territories of Western Sahara as a demonstration of solidarity with the Saharawi people in their legitimate aspirations(1); \

11. RECOMMENDS to the Assembly of the Union to adopt a special declaration condemning the holding of the Crans Montana Forum in Dakhla in the occupied territory of Western Sahara (1), (2);

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January 2015 New online newsletter about all things Saharawi

Western Sahara Update
January 2015

A new online newsletter about all things Saharawi is now available. It is being distributed to 3500 organisations and individuals and is produced by Zain Atfaak in partnership with Sahrawi young people in the Tindouf camps and is sponsored by the Province of Antwerp (Belgium).

To subscribe to the free online newsletter:
email [email protected]

Scottish oil firm Cairn drills amid repression and fear in Western Sahara

Newsnet.scot, 23 January 2015
by Joanna Allan and John Hilary

“You mean you haven’t heard of the roast chicken?” asks Shaykh, a young Saharawi activist, whilst we discuss Moroccan repression tactics in the relative safety of a street side café. Shaykh comes from Western Sahara, a country that has been illegally occupied by neighbouring Morocco for almost 40 years. It seems the Sunday dinner staple is a useful metaphor for the savage manner in which Saharawis are suspended from bars, limbs bound, and beaten in the pursuit of information. The young Saharawi tells us he has experienced “the roast chicken” many a time, in retribution for protesting against foreign governments and corporations that plunder his country’s natural resources.

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A line in the sand: Fighting 40 years of exile in the desert of Western Sahara

by Nicole Crowder, photo editor for the Washington Post’s photography blog, In Sight.
10 December 2014
These striking images have been captured by photojournalist Tomaso Clavarino. In November 2014 he began documenting the Western Sahara military bases and cadets in the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army who are fighting for Sahrawi independence in what he describes as one of the “world’s least reported crises.”

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The Runner – Friday October 10th 2014 – New Council Chambers, 2 Lygon St, Carlton South

The Runner

Directed by Saeed Taji Farouky
An inspiring story that is now being shared with the world

Friday October 10th 2014
6.00pm for 6.30pm start

New Council Chambers, 2 Lygon St, Carlton South

The Runner is the story of world champion long-distance runner, Salah Hmatou Ameidan, and the journey that transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. He comes from Western Sahara, under Moroccan occupation since 1975. He is willing to risk his life, his career, his family and his nationality to run for the cause of a free Western Sahara.

FiSahara 2014: sharing Sahrawi stories at the world’s most remote film festival

Stefan Simanowitz for Voices of Africa, part of the Guardian Africa network

As the great and the good of the world’s film industry prepared to descend on Cannes last week, a very different film festival was coming to a climax deep in the Sahara desert.

Far from the red-carpeted Mediterranean opulence of the Croisette, theSahara International Film Festival – known as FiSahara – took place in a sun-baked refugee camp deep in the Algerian desert. What it may have lacked in glittering VIP premieres and champagne-fuelled yacht parties, FiSahara made up for in spades with dune parties, camel races and multiplex-sized screenings beneath the stars.

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