SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Chahid El Hafed, 13/04/2004 (SPS) Moroccan colonial authorities expelled the independent journalist Erik Hagen, last April the 5th, out of Western Sahara, and deported him to neighbouring Mauritania, reported Norwegian News Agency (NTB).

«Hagen was in the Moroccan occupied territory to interview human rights activists and former political prisoners, among them Sidi Mohammed Daddach, who two years ago was awarded the Rafto Prize for his lifelong struggle for an independent Western Sahara», stressed the same source.

«I was stopped in the street by plain clothed police officers, asking me if I was Mr. Erik. I confirmed that that was the case, and then they said I was welcome to talk to the police commissioner in the city», declared Erik Hagen via telephone to the NTB from Nouadhibou in Mauritania.

The interrogation lasted for hours and was undertaken by the commissioner himself. The Norwegian independent journalist was accused of supporting Polisario Front, the liberation movement.

«I got a few hours to pack my suitcase, and I was placed on the first bus out of the city. The trip lasted for 26 hours, and was 1000 kilometres long.

During the trip, I was escorted by two police officers. Only when I reached the border to Mauritania, did they return my passport», he emphasised.

During the interrogation, it emerged that Moroccan security services had detailed information about the independent journalist, also active within the Norwegian Committee of Support to Western Sahara, indicated the same
source.

«They knew what I had done and what I was going to do. They knew who I was going to meet, obviously after bugging the phone of my contacts», he recounted.

Hagen also thinks that Moroccan agents in Norway had probably delivered information.

«During the interrogation, they asked me which organisations I had worked for previously in Norway. After having enlisted them all, they answered that they already knew it», he added.

He also mentioned other facts that suggest that Moroccan agents are closely following what Norwegian journalists write. In an example, representatives in the Moroccan Embassy in Oslo addressed the editorial office of a Norwegian international magazine, even before the issue was publicised. The Magazine contained an article on human rights in Western Sahara, says Mr. Hagen.

Moroccan colonial authorities maintain Western Sahara under permanent state of siege, forbidding access to the terriroy to observers and international medias, since its military occupation in 1975, and this despite of the presence of the UN in the territory since 1991. (SPS)

010/090/666/TRD 131308 Apr 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/JURISTS
Saharawi Jurists Union claims for the release of Saharawi prisoners held by Morocco

Geneva, 13/04/2004 (SPS) The Saharawi Jurists Union (UJS) claimed, on Monday in front of the 60th session of the Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, for the release of Saharawi prisoners held by Morocco and the organisation of a referendum of self-determination to Saharawi people, indicated a communiqué of the organisation issued on Monday.

According to the text that SPS received, «the UN's Commission for Human Rights, is under the moral obligation to exert pressures on the Moroccan State so as to respect human rights in Western Sahara conforming to the principles of the international humanitarian law».

In this respect, the UJS considers that Morocco should «draw up the truth over the fate of Saharawi disappeared by releasing those still alive and handing over the bodies of those among them who died under torture in Moroccan secret prisons».

Rabat should also, according to the communiqué, «unconditionally release all Saharawi political prisoners presently imprisoned in Moroccan» and «respect the international convention relative to the protection of human rights activists» as well as the convention relative to the protection of civilians in periods of armed conflicts.

The organisation claimed finally for «the end of the military, security and media siege Western Sahara's lives» since the Moroccan troops military invasion of the territory in 1975.

To the UJS, «the violations of human rights in Western Sahara can not end but via the establishment of peace in the region. This peace can not be achieved but through the organisation of a referendum of self-determination, under the aegis of UN, allowing Saharawis to freely decide on the final political status of Western Sahara.

It should be recalled that the UN's Commission for Human Rights has adopted, without vote, on April the 8th, the resolution E/CN.4/2004/L.8 on the question of Western Sahara. The latter was presented by the chairmanship of the Commission, represented this year by the Australian Ambassador, Mr. Michael Peter Floyd Smith. (SPS)

010/090/330/TRD 121018 Apr 04 SPS