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SPS The opponents to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement played a crucial role in raising the awareness of Europeans (Polisario) 05.04.06
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London, 06/04/2006 (SPS) Polisario Front sent, through its Representatives in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Mr. Limam Mohamed Ali, a letter of thanks to the organisations activists within the campaign against these accords.
A campaign, Mr. Limam underlined, that greatly contributed to the rejection, this Tuesday by the European Parliament, of the emergency procedures to ratify the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement.
In statement to the Algerian Press Agency, APS, Mr. Limam stressed that the campaign «Fish Elsewhere!» is composed by organisations, political parties and Associations of support in nine European countries. The latter, he said, greatly contributed to raising the awareness about the Saharawi people’s right to control their natural resources. The campaign stressed on the illegality of these accords, Mr. Limam stressed.
They also exercised pressures to lead the European Parliament to vote against the emergency procedures, that would have, if having been adopted by the EP, transferred the accords to the European Fishery Council, (EU Ministers’ of Fishing), the Saharawi responsible.
The success of the demarche of the opponents to the accords, Mr. Limam said, succeeded because it is based on the UN’s Charter on the economic rights and the responsibilities of the obligations, which stipulate in its Article 16, paragraph 2, that no State has got the right to promote and encourage investments that may be an obstacle to the liberation of a territory occupied by force".
The campaigners opposed these accords because it is not defining the borders of the occupied Saharawi territories, what constitutes a violation to the right of the Saharawi people. (SPS)
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SPS The Saharawi Government "regrets" that Moratinos "puts the knife in the wound anew"
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Bir Lehlu (liberated territories), 06/04/2006 (SPS) The Saharawi Government "deeply regretted" that the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affair, Miguel Angel Moratinos, "manages once more to put the knife in the same wound caused by the illicit Madrid’s Accords signed in November the 14th 1975" with which pain sold the Western Sahara and its people to Morocco and Mauritania.
During his interventions on Wednesday before the Spanish Senate answering a Spanish Parliamentarian who asked for the recognition of the Saharawi Republic by the Spanish State, Mr. Moratinos said that "the creation of the Saharawi Republic is contrary to the principle of self-determination".
"The Saharawi Republic and its proclamation is in harmony with the right to the free self-determination consecrated by the UN and the African Union Organisation as well as it is in harmony with the will of the Saharawi people when the latter was abandoned arms and feet folded (by Spain) to be submitted to extermination", the Saharawi Minister of Information, Sid'Ahmed Batal, stressed in a written statement publicised on Wednesday, of which SPS received a copy.
To the Saharawi Government, "the real contradiction with the principle of self-determination of the peoples is, in fact, the occupation of a big part of our territory by Morocco", knowing that, "the resolution 2625 of the UN’s General Assembly has clearly described this invasion as an international crime".
On another hand, the Saharawi Minister stressed that the Saharawi Republic, "in its quality as a Member State o the African Union and being the real expression of the will of the Saharawi people, will be a component of the Maghreb Arab".
"To deny this fact after the fact that three decades of existence has proved its viability is a current insult to the future relations between the Saharawis and the Spanish State, which are built between our two peoples on the basis of friendship, solidarity and respect of the international legality", the text concluded. (SPS)
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SPS 2 Saharawi NGOs express their deep concern about the situation of human rights in the Western Sahara
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Chahid El Hafed, 06/04/2006 (SPS) The Association of the Families of the Saharawi prisoners and disappeareds (AFAPREDESA) and the Union of the Saharawi Jurists (UJS) expressed on Thursday their ''deep concern'' about the "alarming situation" of the human rights in te occupied territories of the Western Sahara, after the act of torture of 17 Saharawi political prisoners who were brought in critical physical states last Tuesday before the Moroccan colonial court in the occupied city of El Aaiun.
The 2 NGOs condemned this "aggressive behaviour and these repressive practices" used by the Moroccan colonial forces against the helpless detained 17 Saharawi political prisoners and Saharawi human rights activists. They further called on the international Associations, political parties, Parliaments and personalities to "exercise pressures of Morocco so as to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe" in the Western Sahara, emphasised a joint press release the two NGOs publicised on Thursday, of which SPS received a copy.
AFAPREDESA and UJS also called on the UN’s Secretary General Special Representative for Human Rights, Hina Jilani, to send an international ad-hoc committee to the occupied territories of the Western Sahara "to investigate on the flagrant human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan State against the Saharawi citizens and human rights activists in this zones", the text added.
The Saharawi NGOs finally called on the Moroccan Government to "immediately and unconditionally release all the Saharawi political prisoners, 150 Saharawi prisoners of war, to account for more than 526 Saharawi victims of forced disappearance and to the opening of the Saharawi territory to the foreign press, observers and international Parliamentarians". (SPS)
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SPS Saharawi human rights activists ask for the protection of the Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories
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El Aaiun (occupied territories), 06/04/2006 (SPS) Saharawi human rights activists called on Thursday to the protection of the Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara, demanding "the dispatch of an international committee so as to investigate on the flagrant human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan State against the Saharawi citizens".
The Saharawi human rights activists also called on the international community "to protect the Saharawi citizens via the enlargement of the mandate of the Minurso" (UN’s Mission for the Organisation of a Referendum in the Western Sahara) and to allow "foreign observers, international press and NGOs free access to the territory", the human rights activists stressed in a press release, of which SPS received a copy.
The text also asked for "guarantees of a just and transparent trial for the Saharawi political prisoners, who are still in Moroccan custody", asking for their "immediate and unconditional release".
The activists finally called the international community and civil society to "exert pressures of the Moroccan Government for the respect of the human rights in the Western Sahara a for the implementation of the international legality that stipulates self-determination for the Saharawi people". (SPS)
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SPS 8 persons at least arrested during demonstrations in three main occupied Saharawi cities
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El Aaiun (occupied territories), 06/04/2006 (SPS) At least 8 Saharawi citizens are arrested by the Moroccan colonial forces during demonstrations that broke out on Tuesday evening and Wednesday early morning, in El Aaiun, Boujdour and Smara, claiming for the immediate withdrawal of the Moroccan occupation from e Western Sahara and the respect of the human rights in the occupied territories of the non-Self-Governing territory, reported the correspondent of the SPS on the ground.
In El Aaiun, the Moroccan forces of occupation arrested four (4) Saharawi students in a secondary school of the city. The students are: Ali Ahmed Lihmaidi, Belkassem Mohamed Mohamed Fadel, Boussaoula Ahmed Salek and Mahmoud Messoud, while 3 others: Daoudi, Alouatt Mohamed Salem and Mohamed Litayem were tortured.
In the occupie city of Boujdour, 3 Saharawis: Dida Abidine Soueidi, Ngueiguiz Ahmed and Mohamed Ziyad were arrested by the Moroccan colonial forces, while a young man, Sidi Brahim El Kherrachi, who suffers from a fracture in his leg was arrested without having any chance to get medical care, the same source indicated.
In fron of this situation of daily arrest of Saharawi students by the Moroccan authorities in the occupied city of Boujdour, the mothers of the Saharawi students organised a sit-in in front of a school in the city to "protect their sons against the brutal oppression exercised by the Moroccan security services ".
They went after that to the main police station of the occupied city of Boujdour to denounce "the blind oppression against their sons, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the arrested students". The mothers were in their turn severely dispersed by the Moroccan forces of repression, the same source added.
In the occupied city of Smara, a young Saharawi woman, Merzoug Zendoura, was arrested by the Moroccan police, on Wednesday evening, in a telephone cabinet where she works.
The girl was led to the police station to be interrogated and tortured for more than 2 hours by the Moroccan Criminal police agent, Ishaq, the same source said. (SPS)
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SPS Many US Senators and Congressmen "concerned" about the "alarming" situation of human rights in the Western Sahara
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Washington D.C, 06/04/2006 (SPS) Many US Senators and Congressmen expressed their "concern" about the "alarming" situation of human rights of the Western Sahara and about the "repressive practices" of the Moroccan colonial authorities against the Saharawi civilians, after their meeting with the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, who is undertaking a visit to the USA since last Monday.
"The US officials were unanimous to underline that the delays are no more allowed to the UN to concretise its engagements to decolonise the Saharawi territory via a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people", indicated to SPS a source from the Saharawi presidential delegation.
During his sojourn in the US Federal Capital, the President of the Republic had had many meetings, mainly with political personalities, Congressmen, Representatives of the US civil society. He informed all of them about the last political developments in the occupied territories f the Western Sahara and asked "the USA to intervene vis-à-vis Morocco to compel it respect the international legality".
The Head of the State also met with members of the Associations of friendship with the Saharawi people, which militates for the "instauration of peace in the last country in the African continent still under colonial domination, and to compel Morocco compel with the international community’s resolutions that urge for a self-determination referendum in the Western Sahara", the same source added.
The Saharawi President was received before in New York by the President of the UN’s Security Council, the Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Wang Guangya, and by the UN’s Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
Mr. Abdelaziz informed his interlocutors about "the concern of the Saharawi political leadership regarding the degradation of the situation in the occupied territories", underlining that the UN "can not stay silent in front of such unbearable human rights violations and the terror the Saharawis are undergoing while the MINURSO (the UN’s mission) is present in the territory", it should be recalled.
Concerning a possible prorogation of the mandate of the MINURSO after the end of the current mandate, this April the 30th, the President of the Republic warned that this "can only be possible in the perspective of the organisation by the UN of a referendum on self-determination for the Saharawi people conforming to the international organisation’ doctrine concerning the decolonisation".
"Any other approach is illegal, not realistic and can not count on the adherence of the Saharawi people and their legitimate representative, the Polisario Front", he said.
The visit by President Abdelaziz to New York and Washington intervenes in the eve of the ordinary meeting of the UN’s Security Council on the Western Sahara question planed for the end of April.
The President of the Republic is accompanied by a delegation composed of Mr. Mhamed Khadad, Coordinator with the MINURSO, Mr. Boukhari Ahmed and Mr. Mouloud Saïd, respectively Polisario Font’s representatives in New York and in Washington. (SPS)
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SPS Opening of the 3rd International Festival of the Cinema of the Sahara
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El Aaiun (Saharawi refugee camps), 06/04/2006 (SPS) The Third edition of the la International Festival of the Cinema of the Sahara (FISAHRA), will open on Friday in the Wilaya of El Aaiun, with the presence of a delegation from Cuba as guest of honour, according o the organisers of this cultural event, which is organised each year in solidarity with the Saharawi people.
The project "Cinema for the Saharawi people", which appeared in 2003, will be an occasion to "introduce the cinema to the Saharawi population in the refugee camps as a mean of leisure, culture but also to raise the awareness of the international community about the situation of the Saharawi refugees", the same source said.
Activities in the margin of the 3rd edition of the Festival began on Wednesday with the participation of national and international delegations, coming from different countries, the same source stressed.
Workshops for training for Saharawi cinematographer will be organised in the first day of the festival, but also in the favour of children, adolescents, while the projection of films are in the programme publicised by the Spanish Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences, taking into account the Saharawi culture an norms. (SPS)
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SPS CNASPS satisfied about the rejection by the EP of the procedures of the Fishing accords
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Algiers, 06/04/2006 (SPS) The Algerian National Committee of solidarity with the Saharawi people (CNASPS) expressed its satisfaction, on Wednesday, about the decision adopted by the European Parliament rejecting the emergency procedures of the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement signed last July.
The agreements between the two parties, it should be recalled, implicitly include the territorial waters of the Western Sahara, and for this there was this wide rejection of the emergency procedures of the accords.
To the CNASPS, the rejection and the opposition of the majority of the Members of the European members of the emergency procedures "clearly establish, anew, that the Western Sahara question is a decolonisation issue", the Algerian NGO asserted in its pres release.
The European Parliament’s rejection of these accords, CNASPS also underlined, is a further proof that "Morocco is an occupying power and that the exploitation of the wealth of the territory, in the current conditions, is illegal" taking into account that this exploitation does not "respect the rights, interests and legitimate aspirations of the Saharawi people who remains the only source of sovereignty" over the Western Sahara.
The NGO finally asked the European Union to defend "human rights and democracy" in the Western Sahara, and to pay additional efforts for the "strict implementation of the conventions and international humanitarian laws in the occupied territories" of the last Non-Self-Governing territory in the African continent.(SPS)
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