SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

Paris, 13/06/2005 (SPS) The XVI Congress of the International Democrat Jurists' Association (IDJA), held in Paris from the 7th to the 11th of June 2005, denounced "the persistence of the flagrant violations of human rights in occupied territories of Western Sahara, especially the violent repression against peaceful demonstrators who peacefully claim for the holding of a referendum for self-determination and the respect of human rights, since last My the 23rd 205", underlined a resolution by the Congress.

"Deeply preoccupied by the denial of justice Saharawi people continue to suffer from" (…) "and extremely frustrated about the successive delay of a free and regular referendum for self-determination in Western Sahara", the Congress reaffirmed its "firm engagement with the Saharawi people and its support to its legitimate aspirations to the free and democratic expression over its future". It further underlined "the importance, for the Maghreb’s region, of the peaceful settlement of Western Sahara’s conflict".

It also called on the UN and its Security Council to complete "the decolonisation process in Western Sahara conforming to international legality", demanding that a global solution be found in order to "release the Saharawi reported missing and the prisoners of war under the auspices of the International Red Cross Committee", added the resolution.

Saharawi Jurists Union’s Secretary General, Abba El Haissan, who took part to the Congress, had had numerous contacts with different delegations from African, European, American and Asian countries to inform them on the last developments of the situation in Western Sahara especially the repression exerted by the forces of occupation in the occupied territories. He also invited the IDJA to visit the occupied territories of Western Sahara so as to "investigate on the prevailing serious situation".

Saharawi Jurists’ Union (UJS) hailed the tireless efforts of the IDJA for a better world where law and justice prevail and expressed its satisfaction for the special concern the international association is giving to the question of Western Sahara as a problem of uncompleted decolonisation. (SPS)

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OCCUPIED TERITORIES/INTIFADA/HARASSEMENT
Continuous harassment against the participants to the Intifada and human rights activists in Western Sahara

Dajla (occupied territories), 13/06/2005 (SPS) Harassment against the participants in the Intifada of the last May in occupied territories worsen to include Saharawi human rights activists in Western Sahara and the families of the persons who participated to the Intifada "to intimidate and terrorise them in order to put an end to their claim for the independence of their countries", close sources to these families of the victims reported to SPS.

In the evening of June the 11, Saharawi human rights activist, Hamia Ahmed Ould Moussa, was tracked by two police cars that followed him to his house and kept the surveillance there until the next morning. Moroccan colonial authorities do not agree with his activities in the Committee against Torture in Dajla, the Committee of the Families of Saharawi reported missing, the International Committee for the protection of Saharawi human rights activists and of being one of the members of the group Morocco banned from travelling to participate to the UN Committee for Human Rights in Geneva in 2003.

On another hand, Mr. Wenna Baba Beida, was attacked in a bar by Moroccan police who wanted to kidnap him. He would have been now under torture in Moroccan authorities detention centres unless his friends intervened to defend. "It is a way to dissuade and terrorise him because of his participation in the last demonstrations that claimed for the release of detainees and the withdrawal of the Moroccan colonial presence", it was said.

An old man, about 70 years old, Mr. Oulad Chikh Mahjoub Ben Beida, father of the disappeared, Oulad Chikh Abdel Jelil, who was kidnapped by Moroccan forces in the first years of the Moroccan invasion, and father to human rights activist, Oulad Chikh Mohamed Fadel, was ill-treated by the police which is maintaining his family under close surveillance night and day intimidating them and threatening them every now and then. He also had another son who started chanting slogans in favour of the independence of Western Sahara from the roof of their house last week.

In El Aaiun, young El Foughraoui Sid’Ahmed Taleb, was simply thrown from the roof of a house where he took refuge after he was purchased by Moroccan Urban Security Group (GUS). He suffers now from many fractures in the vertebral column, pelvis, ribs and his right arm and leg. The young was admitted to hospital "Bel Mehdi" after hours waiting in the hospital hall, it was indicated.

Saharawi human rights activists launched an urgent appeal to human rights’ international organisations to "intervene in order to loosen the increasingly tightening noose around them and around the participants in the last Intifada of May".

In all occupied cities the Moroccan repressive machine harasses Saharawi human rights activists and demonstrators they could identify in Spanish Televisions' programmes on the Intifada and in video films shot by the police in the Saharawi cities and in Moroccan universities, it was said.

In his last letter to European Union, the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, said that such a situation will probably "languish and unfortunately worsen". This demonstrations he said, apart from "frustration and deception" they symbolise in front of "the passiveness of the international community and the abdication of the UN" are in the first place the expression "of a clear rejection of three decades of occupation and Moroccan colonial fait accompli", it should be recalled. (SPS)

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SADR/FINLANDE
Polisario Front invited by Finnish Social-Democrat Party

Jyvaskylassa (Finland), 13/06/2005 (SPS) A delegation representing POLISARIO Front (PF), chaired by Mr. Mhamed Khadad, member of the PF National Secretariat and Coordinator with the Minurso and accompanied by Saharawi Representative to Scandinavian countries, Lamine Yahiaoui, was invited to attend the National Congress of the Finnish Social-Democrat Party held from the 9th to the 11thg June 2005 in Jyvaskylassa.

The delegation that had many meetings with foreign delegations was received by the new President of the Party, Eero Heinaluoma, and by the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, a Saharawi official source indicated.

Mr. Khadad informed his interlocutors about the last developments of the Saharawi question especially about the civil resistance of the Saharawi population against Moroccan occupation, which was amplified and reinforced these last weeks as well as about the "abject and fierce repression" Moroccan forces used against Saharawis in response.

He also explained that the situation is "dangerous" and may explode at any moment. "The closure of the territory, the State of siege prevailing there as well as the denial of entry to foreign delegations to the territory makes fears grow of: A planed massacre against helpless civil population", the same source added.

Mr. Khadad called for "an implication of Europe to compel Morocco put an end to its repressive practices, to release the detainees and cooperate for the implementation of the UN’s Security Council’s pertinent", that demand the respect of the Saharawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination.

In Helsinki, the Saharawi delegation met with the President of the Committee for Human Rights and the President of the Committee for the Maghreb Region, in the Seat of the Finnish Parliament. It also met with members of the Finnish group of solidarity with the Saharawi people, which is gathering eminent political personalities, citizens and trade unionists. (SPS)

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SADR/ALGERIA
Algerian Women Network for Peace reiterates its support to the Saharawi cause

Algiers, 13/06/2005 (SPS) The President of the Algerian Women Network for Peace (AWNP), Mrs. Saida Benhabyles, reiterated, Monday in Algiers, her support to Saharawi people and to its "legitimate representative, Polisario Front" for its right to freedom and self-determination.

Intervening during a meeting organised by the Network in "Sidi M’ Sidi M'hamed" in Algiers in solidarity with the Saharawi people, Mrs. Benhabyles underlined "Saharawi people’s right to self-determination for a decent life within a framework of democracy and freedom", reiterating "Algerian women full support to the Saharawi cause as a question of decolonisation".

In this respect, Mrs. Benhabyles stressed the importance "of the work on the ground so as to make the voice of the Saharawi people heard at an international level and to convince the entire world of the justice of its cause for independence".

On its part a delegation of Polisario Front, chaired by Mr. Mahfoudh Ali Beiba, President of the Saharawi Parliament and Mr. Khalil Sid M'hamed, Minister of the Occupied Territories as well as Mr. Mohamed Islem Bisset, Ambassador of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) to Algiers hailed "the support Algeria never stopped providing Saharawi people with".

In this occasion, the President of the Saharawi Parliament affirmed that his people “aspire to independence in a peaceful way and to recover its rights as a dignified and free people".

AWNP, it should be recalled, is a member to the international Network of Women for Peace. The Algerian Network is composed of 30 Algerian associations. (SPS)

010/090/700/TRD 131631 June 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/INTIFADA/MEDIAS
ABC and El Periodico newspapers put forward Saharawi people’s attachment to independence

Madrid, 13/06/2005 (SPS) Spanish newspapers, ABC and El Periodico, publicised reportages in their Monday’s edition on Western Sahara in which they put forward Saharawi youth, in occupied territories, attachment to independence, to their country and to their right to self-determination.

Under the title “Something is moving in Western Sahara’’, ABC’s special envoy to El Aaiun, Luis de Vega, noted at a first hand new demonstrations against the repression and claiming for self-determination, Friday and Saturday, in Dajla stressing again “a problem of an ongoing process of decolonisation, while the UN are accused of passivity’.

These movements of protest are the most important in these last five years and give the impression that Saharawis living in occupied territories "do feel no more fears’’, he wrote.

The newspaper recalled that after Spain decided in 1975 to “abandon this enormous piece of desert, which is rich in phosphate and in fishing, things changed’’. King Hasan II, he added, ordered "the occupation" of the Sahara by "sending hundreds Moroccans in what was called the green march".

Mahmoud Kharbiche, 24 years old Saharawi who participate to the last demonstrations, the newspaper quoted, declared: "I do not know for how much time this situation will languish, but one day Moroccan will have to leave Western Sahara". "Before my family, my job or even my life there is the independence of my people", Mahmoud, who is graduated in English, affirmed.

ABC underlined that, despite the fact that Moroccan pretend Saharawis who share Mahmoud’s ideas are a "minority", they are "so many". "People are fed up with it, because they found out that Morocco is not ready to resolve the question ", declared Mr. Brahim Noumria, ex-political prisoner and human rights activist.

"What Saharawi population is claiming for now has nothing to do with jobs, residence or food. This why they raise Polisario Front’s flags", he explained.

Catalonian newspaper El Periodico publicised a similar reportage entitled "the bitter awakening of El Aaiun". Its special envoy, Nacho Parra, noted that the “Saharawi resistance in El Aaiun intensified (...) 30 years after the green march (Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara) and after Golondrina operation (Spanish abandoning of its colony)".

"In 1975, the majority of the youth joined Polisario Front, and only women, old people and children remained in El Aaiun. This children represent the new Intifada now", affirms H’mad Hammad, 46 years, quoted by El Periodico.

Moroccan authorities in El Aaiun maintain that Saharawi demonstrators "never transcend 300 person", but it is enough to pass bye Maatalah neighbourhood, which is "under Moroccan forces siege for weeks", to find out that "angry Saharawis who dare declare it openly are so many", El Periodico’s special envoy said

"People come bye the journalists to assert them that they are in favour of independence, then go away as quickly out of their fear of reprisal", Nacho Parra said.

"We are living a false democracy. We are second level citizens on our own country. The posts of responsibility given to Saharawis are empty of any sense and indigenous investors can not progress in the face of the (Moroccan) settlers’ lobby. They are taking profit of the international passivity to plunder our territory", Brahim Dahan, 39 years, denounces.

Mohamed Omar, human rights activist, says that the "key" for the settlement of the conflict is between the hands of Spain. "They want to have deals? We are not against this, but not in alliance with a regime of invasion and in detriment of a whole people". "And if we are as little in number as they say why don’t they organise a referendum under the auspices of the UN?” he wondered. (SPS)

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