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SPS Aminetou Haidar asks for the "creation of a mechanism for the protection of the Saharawi people” 10.10.06
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Paris, 10/10/2006 (SPS) The Saharawi human rights, Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, called on the international community, on Monday in Paris, "to create a mechanism for the protection of the Saharawi people from the Moroccan authorities’ abuses", the Algerian Press Agency, APS, reported.
"The situation is really worrying in the Western Sahara under Moroccan occupation", she warned during a press conference. "The Saharawi people, which started a peaceful resistance for its rights to self-determination, is daily oppressed in a territory which is closed by the Moroccan authorities who do not allow the representatives of the international community and press fro visiting it to investigate on what is really happening over there" she added.
Regretting that the "French civil society is not well informed about the human rights situation Moroccan authorities violate in the Western Sahara", Mrs. Haidar, who was herself victim of forced disappearance from 1987 to 1991, and "tortured" because of her activities, has thoroughly described "the sufferings, repression, and oppression the Saharawi people are daily undergoing".
"Even my 11 years old daughter was interrogated by the Moroccan police to put pressures on my activities", she said indignant, indicating that she also received "many anonymous messages" threatening her of "physical elimination if I pursue my activities of human rights defence".
In this respect, she said that she is sure that upon her "return to the Western Sahara" she will "certainly be arrested again".
"There is n international delegation that will accompany me, but the Moroccan authorities ill not allow it to enter the territory for sure, as they recently did with the European parliament’s ad-ho delegation", she stressed.
These repressions “touch all Saharawi people who have more than 500 disappeareds since 1975 when Morocco invaded the Western Sahara", she underlined, emphasising that the Moroccan authorities "actually detain 33 Saharawi political prisoners, who are undertaking hunger strikes and are in critical state, including 4 Saharawi human rights activists".
"The blockage of salaries, deportation, confiscation of goods and identity papers and intimidations are he daily share of the Saharawi human rights activists", Mrs. Aminatou Haidar said.
During the press conference, she exposed a set of photos that were very representatives of the horrors she were relating. Mrs. Haidar also evoked the "show trials the Saharawi political detainees are victims to".
Mrs. Haidar further spoke about the "wall of shame", 2.700 kilometres long wall, filled with 3 millions antipersonnel mines, according to an American journalist, Jean Lamore, who was present to the conference.
"You can not imagine the psychological choc" the separated Saharawi families are living because of this wall, "not to count the persons who dies because of the antipersonnel mines, which aims to commit a real genocide against the Saharawi population", she underlined.
The Saharawi human rights activist also stressed "the acceleration, for the last 3 years, of the colonisation" the Western Sahara has to suffer.
According to her, the acceleration of the demographic invasion and “implantation”, especially of the Moroccan administration besides its political and military goals, aims to counterweight during a possible referendum in the occupied Western Sahara.
"The repression that is striking the Saharawi people is not a new thing", she pursued, recalling that "common graves, Napalm and white Phosphor Moroccan authorities used to oppress" any attempts to "resist the occupation".
"Despite all this the Saharawi people remain attached to their right to self-determination", she underlined. "It is clear that this right is the only condition for all this to end definitively", Mrs. Haidar considered.
Mrs. Haidar also thanked Algeria "for having received, parting from humanitarian reasons, the Saharawi refugees".
She said she I undertaking a visit to France, within the framework of an international turn "to raise the awareness of the international public opinion on the Saharawi question".
IN the French city of Mantes la Jolie Mrs. Haidar had met with the Saharawi community and started contacts with the French press and political parties. (SPS)
020/090/700/TRD 100925 Oct 06 SPS
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SPS Cities in the South of Morocco support Saharawi political prisoners
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Goulimine (South of Morocco), 10/10/2006 (SPS) Saharawi citizens in Goulimine organised peaceful demonstrations, on Sunday, in solidarity with the Saharawi political prisoners incarcerated in the Moroccan prisons, trustworthy sources indicated.
The demonstrators lifted the flags of the Saharawi Republic and chanted slogans asking for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Saharawi political prisoners and human rights activists, who were arrested for having peacefully claimed for their people’s right to self-determination and independence, the same sources stressed.
The Moroccan colonial authorities interpellated the Saharawi trade unionist and human rights activist, Mrs. Khadija Moutik, to be brought before the Moroccan colonial court of Goulimine, accusing her "of insulting an employee of the State and of the destruction of public properties", it was indicated.
Mrs. Moutik committed no crime, she only claimed, in company of some of her compatriots, Saharawi people’s most fundamental rights and called for a movement of solidarity with the Saharawi political prisoners, who are maintained in Moroccan custody.
The Saharawi trade-unionist was abusively dismissed of her wok last September the 12th 2005 because of her trade unionist activities. She was also arrested and brutalised by the Moroccan forces of repression last October 2005 after a demonstration in Goulimine organised by the Saharawi population to "protest against the visit of the Moroccan king to the city and to demand the immediate release of the Saharawi political prisoners".
Many flags of the Saharawi Republic and writings on walls advocating the Saharawi people right to self-determination and rejecting the Moroccan occupation were noted on the walls of many houses in the different neighbourhoods of the city, which is situated in the south of Morocco.
Similar demonstrations were organised in the localities of Tarfaya and Zak (South of Morocco) to advocate the "immediate" withdrawal of the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara and the release of all the Saharawi political prisoners in the Moroccan prisons.
These demonstrations also asked for the respect of Saharawi people’s right to self-determination, as well as to the end of the human rights violations perpetrated by Morocco against the Saharawi civilians in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and in the south of Morocco. (SPS)
020/090/110/RD 101055 Oct 06 SPS
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SPS Aminetou Haidar dénonce la complicité de la France dans les violations des droits humains au Sahara Occidental
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Paris, 10/10/2006 (SPS) Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, ex-political prisoners and human rights activist unveiled "the atrocities committed by the Moroccan colonial authorities" against the Saharawi occupied territories and denounced the "complicity of France in the human rights violations in the Western Sahara by blindly supporting the Moroccan Government".
In a press conference, held last Monday at the centre of the reception of foreign press (CAPE) in Paris, where she sojourn following an invitation of Amnesty International, Mrs. Haidar testified on the tragedy she personally lived during years of forced disappearance she underwent.
"I was still a student when I was abducted in 1987, on the occasion of a visit undertaken by a UN delegation to the occupied territories. I was tortured and put in secret detention for four years. During all this period my comrades and myself we were blindfolded and we endured tortures and ill-treatment everyday. We did not have any rights", she said.
"My family underwent pressures and my 11 years old daughter was convoked, interrogated and terrorised by the Moroccan authorities", she denounced.
"Today the Saharawi political prisoners, especially the hunger strikers, are living a tragic situation that should be denounced", she added before she asked for the creation of a "mechanism for the protection of the Saharawis against this blind repression they are undergoing".
"I can be arrested anew or even physically eliminated by the Moroccan authorities but this does not scare me", she said answering a journalist. "I will be accompanied by a delegation upon my return but I doubt that the Moroccan authorities would let it enter the territory", she declared.
Mrs. Haidar, who was animating this conference along with Mrs. Aline PAILLER, journalist in France-culture and ex-European Parliamentarian, expressed her astonishment about the French officials who refused to meet her.
"I was received an listened to at the highest levels of many countries", who are concerned about the human rights violations in the Western Sahara, such as the USA, Spain, Sweden or Italy. The French officials "refused to receive me", she deplored, before she expressed her "astonishment" and her "inability to understand" such an attitude that gives proof on "the partiality and complicity of the French Government with Morocco".
"My astonishment is even bigger because France is considered as a country of human rights and the French people is still in revolution against injustices", she said, launching an appeal to the civil society to "mobilise and denounce the human rights violations in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara".
Mrs. PAILLER, on her part, said that the essence of the problem of the Western Sahara conflict remains "the denial by Morocco of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination". "As long as this right is not respected and implemented, Morocco will continue to violate human rights in the Western Sahara", she said.
In this respect, she recalled the conclusions of the recent report of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has clearly caught Morocco and demanded" the implementation of the self-determination in favour of the Saharawi people, without more delays". (SPS)
010/090/KNT/TRD 101856 oct 06 SPS
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SPS The President of the Republic receives a Canary Islands’ youth delegation
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Chahid El Hafed, 10/10/2006 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, received an important youth delegation from the Canary Islands (Tenerife), on Tuesday at the seat of the presidency, after they ended a work visit to the Saharawi refugee camps.
"Through yourselves, we launch an appeal to he Canaries citizens to raise the awareness among the National and International public opinion and contribute in opening the occupied territories of the Western Sahara to the international observers and NGOs so as to help protect the Saharawis against the Moroccan Government fierce repression", the head of the State said addressing the Spanish youngsters who are in the camps since October the 1st.
"Spain remains, as long as the international law is concerned, the responsible for the decolonisation of the Western Sahara Madrid abandoned to its torturers", Mr. Abdelaziz recalled, adding that Spain "must assume its responsibilities and give back to the Saharawi people what is their, their right to self-determination".
The President of the Republic deplored that the current Spanish Government submitted to the demands of Morocco and is actively participating to the signature of fishing agreements between the European Union and Morocco to "illegally plunder the fishing resources of the Saharawi people at a moment when a part of this same people is under the Moroccan colonial yoke and the other part is suffering exile in the refugee camps".
"We are not against the Spanish interests in Western Sahara, but these interests should not be to the detriment of the Saharawi people", he said.
about hundred youngsters from Tenerife participated to a project of mobilisation on the Saharawi people struggle for their self-determination, and they helped for tend days in the rebuilding of hospitals, schools and in the prevention of AIDS in the Diras (municipalities) of Mahbes (in the Smara refugee camp) and Amgala (in the El Aaiun refugee camp). (SPS)
010/090/000/TRD 101537 oct b06 SPS
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SPS The Canaries Islands youth demands self-determination for the Saharawi people
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Chahid El Hafed, 10/10/2006 (SPS) The Canaries Islands’ youth demanded, in a manifest publicised on Tuesday in Chahid El Hafed, "the right to the freedom and self-determination of the Saharawi people" and declared to be "implicated in the solidarity with the Saharawi people" (...) "who suffer hard consequences of the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara before an unjustifiable and unforgivable indifference showed by the Spanish Government".
Arrived since October the 1st to the Saharawi refugee camps, about hundred youngsters from Tenerife participated to a project of mobilisation on the Saharawi people struggle for their self-determination, and they helped for tend days in the rebuilding of hospitals, schools and in the prevention of AIDS in the Diras (municipalities) of Mahbes (in the Smara refugee camp) and Amgala (in the El Aaiun refugee camp).
"We, more than any other people, we have the duty as brothers unified by history, to defend the message of freedom and self-determination the Saharawi people is claiming for", stressed the manifest which was read before the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, during a ceremony of reception organised at the Saharawi Presidency in Chahid El Hafed with the presence of the Saharawi Representative in Tenerife, Hamdi Beray. (SPS)
010/090/000/TRD 101604 oct 06 SPS
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