SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Bir Lehlu (liberated territories of Western Sahara), 05/09/2005 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, sent a message of congratulations to the Prince of Qatar, Cheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani, on the occasion of the national day of the Emirate of Qatar.

"It is my honour to express to your Excellency and to the brotherly people of Qatar and to the Dynasty of Al Thani, our warmest congratulations on the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the independence of Qatar, on behalf of the Saharawi people and Government and on my personal name", the letter indicates.

"The people of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic closely follow the glorious march of Qatar, who was achieved under your leadership. Here you are now with a permanent constitution and a State of institutions that guarantees freedoms and rights and which puts the Qatari woman in the upper levels of the political scene", the message added.

The Head of the Saharawi State also informed Mr. Al Thani about Polisario Front’s unilateral initiative of releasing the last Moroccan prisoners of war last August the 18th to participate to the creation of a favourable atmosphere capable of generating a settlement to the conflict that opposes his country to Morocco, on the basis of the respect of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination through a free, regular and transparent referendum under the auspices of the UN, "been an obligatory step for the construction of the great Maghreb arab".

President Abdelaziz, finally, hoped that the relations of friendship that "we built during these last years and that gather our two peoples, continue to get stronger for the sake of our two peoples". (SPS)

SPS
SADR/AFRICAN UNION /PRISONERS

Mr. Abdelaziz asks for African Union’s intervention in the release of the 37 Saharawi political prisoners in hunger strike "

Chahid El Hafed, 05/09/2005 (SPS) The President of the republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, solicited from the President of he African Union’s Commission (AUC), Alpha Omar Konaré, to intervene vis-à-vis Morocco for the release of the 37 Saharawi political prisoners in hunger strike and whose state of health have seriously deteriorated, as well as to intervene for the release of 151 Saharawi prisoners of war and more than 500 Saharawi civil ‘disappeareds’.

In a letter he addressed to Mr. Konaré, the Head of the Saharawi State recalled the release, last August the 18th, of the last Moroccan prisoners of war by Polisario Front, underlining that this initiative "did not find favourable echo from the Moroccan Government, who continues its rebellion against the international legality refusing to enforce UN Security Council’s resolutions that call to the organisation of a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people".

President Abdelaziz stressed the circumstances that coincide with the unilateral release of the Moroccan prisoners of war by Polisario Front, underlining that it occurs in a moment when Rabat "strengthen its iron grasp on the occupied territories of Western Sahara, fiercely repressing Saharawi citizens and imposing terror, arbitrary arrests and security and Medias siege on the territory ".

On another hand, he recalled that these released soldiers, and officers were captured by Polisario Front "during the Moroccan military invasion of Western Sahara and the battles that took place then between the 2 armies from 1975 to 1991", when the cease-fire between the parties, Morocco and Saharawi people, was enforced within the framework of the UN-AUO’s settlement plan.

Last August the 18, it should be recalled, Polisario Front released the last 404 Moroccan prisoners of war, who are the last group of the 2000 Moroccan soldiers he captured during the years of war in Western Sahara. This group was released with the presence of President George W. Bush’s Special Envoy, Senator Richard Lugar, and were repatriated to Morocco the same day in 2 American planes. (SPS)

010/090/100 050945 sept 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/SPAIN/PRISONERS

Hmad’s calls on Zapatero for the release of Saharawi political prisoners in hunger strike

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 05/09/2005 (SPS) Saharawi human rights activist, Hmad Hamad, launched an urgent appeal from his cell in the Carcel Negra (Black Jail- in El Aaiun city- Capital of Western Sahara) to the Head of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, asking for his intervention vis-à-vis Morocco so as to release the 37 Saharawi political prisoners who are undertaking a hunger strike since last August the 8 in Moroccan jails.

"The Spanish Government must be aware of his responsibilities vis-à-vis Western Sahara, been still the Administrating Power of the territory it abandoned without achieving the obligatory process of decolonisation as ordered by the UN", Mr. Hmad recalled in a letter he addressed to Zapatero.

"Our people is still suppressed by the forces of occupation in front of the witnessing eyes of the entire world. A people who only asks for the holding of referendum so as to be enabled to decide over his future", M. Hmad underlined. The political prisoner, it should be recalled was deported by force, last July the 12^th 2005, from the "Casa Espana", the only building that remains under Spanish property in Western Sahara.

Mr. Hmad, who also was delivered to his Moroccan torturers by the Spanish authorities, after having entered the Spanish Embassy in Rabat in 1990 asking for political exile, revealed having been "savagely tortured then to the reach the limits of sufferings".

"All our cities, in the occupied territories, are sealed by the different Moroccan corps of security, imposing a state of siege that maintains the population under permanent pressures", he indicated, adding that the same authorities "closed our streets and houses, while the police controls the main corners of the cities putting restrictions with brutal violence on persons movement and on their rights".

Mr. Hmad, like his 36 other compatriots in Moroccan prisons, started an unlimited hunger strike to claim for their immediate and unconditional release, taking into consideration that they are "arbitrarily incarcerated by Moroccan colonial courts so as to dissuade them give up their peaceful struggle for the Saharawi people’ s right to self-determination and independence", it should be recalled. (SPS)

010/090/666 051652 sept 05 SPS