SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

El Aaiun (refugees camps), 22/02/2004 (SPS) The starting signal of the IVth edition of the Sahara Marathon will be given on Monday morning from the Wilaya of El Aaiun heading towards Smara on a desert trajectory, for a regular 42,159 Km, announced the Italian organisers of this edition.

« An athletic competition that aims to show solidarity with the legitimate struggle Saharawi people is undertaking for their self-determination and independence », declared Mattia Durli, a member of the Italian organising committee, to SPS.

The participants estimated to 200 persons, according to the organisers, «did not come uniquely to dispute the competition, but also to express their support to the Saharawi people and to bring them, according to the participants' abilities, a material aid».

«The contributions of the athletes will be used this year to buy medicines, which know serious scarcity in the refugees' camps because of the decline of specialized humanitarian organizations' aid», it was indicated.

Athletes from Italy, Chile and of Cuba, had already joined the camps, while those of Spain, United States, Sweden and France, are expected to come in the evening. Their arrival on Saturday, previously announced, was delayed by a sand storm having covered the whole south Algeria during 48 hours,
it should be mentioned.

The race will include a half marathon (21 Km), and distances of 10 and 5 Km, as well as a race for children planed for on Tuesday in the Wilaya of Smara, it was added.

This international athletic event that began in February 2001 under the impulse of American, Spanish, Italian and German personalities in collaboration with the ministry of the culture and sport, had already gathered thousandsof athletes and participants from several nationalities on the Saharawi desert.

It should be recalled that the last marathon had recorded the participation of 363 athletes coming from 17 countries. (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 221813 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/ALGERIA/SOLIDARITY
Some Algerian journalists announce the foundation of a club of friends of
Tifariti

Algiers, 22/02/2004 (SPS) A group of Algerian journalists recently announced the birth of a Club of the Friends of Tifariti, « a free space, open to professionals of the mass media, intellectuals, researchers, students, Algerian and foreign personalities that are interested about the Saharawi question»,
indicated a communiqué of the Club, of which SPS received a copy.

The initiative is an idea of a group of journalists of different Algerian media, « after a wide consultation between the professionals of mass media interested by the Saharawi cause », specified the same source.
The group, having namely signed the communiqué, aims to «express the wide solidarity of the journalists with Saharawi people who are suffering fromMoroccan colonialism's oppression», added the same source.

The Club of the Friends of Tifariti is governed by principles and objectives, it has got an internal regulation and a programme of action, concluded the communiqué. (SPS)

030/090/720/TRD 221741 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES /HUMAN RIGHTS
Saharawi Collective of Human Rights Defenders in occupied territories denounces
exactions against Tamek

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 22/02/2004 (SPS) The Collective of the Saharawi human rights defenders (CSHD) in the occupied territory denounced exactions and intimidations performed against Mr. Ali Salem Tamek and the Saharawi human Rights' defenders in Western Sahara, calling the international
community to protect them against possible reprisals.

''Moroccan authorities relapse into and continue to multiply the intimidations against the Saharawi human rights defenders in Western Sahara's territories colonised by Morocco'', warned a communiqué of the CDHS published on Saturday.
 
According to the text, of which SPS received a copy, the Saharawi human rights defender, Ali SalemTamek, became a target, since his liberation last January the 7th, to «a hysterical mass media campaign, orchestrated by political parties and some Moroccan pretended writers, certainly sponsored by the highest spheres of the Moroccan state's administration».

Seizing the appeal of numerous Moroccan mass media and high officials of the Makhzen «for his arrest and his deportation out of the Moroccan and Saharawi territories», the organisation showed to be preoccupied about the «slanderous and racist comments » expressed «against him and against the
Saharawi people, obviously denying its existence ».

«This mass media campaign took a serious turn by analogically comparing the actions that Saharawi human rights defenders undertake in Western Sahara with the terrorist acts, Morocco was the field to last May the 16th 2003», deplored the communiqué.

Facing what it considers as a «Moroccan campaign that reflects racists connotation», the CDHS expressed its ''total solidarity with Ali Salem Tamek'', saluting his « courage and his determination » to campaign to unveil human rights violations in Western Sahara, warning Moroccan authorities «against any
eventual reprisals that can be perpetrated against Ali Salem Tamek ».

Hailing Moroccan democrats who supported and expressed their solidarity with Tamek and his right to the liberty of expression, the CDHS called for the intervention of human rights? international organisations to
«put pressures on Moroccan authorities to force it stop this racist mass media campaign orchestrated against him ».

The collective recalled «Moroccan state » that Saharawi people is « a civilised, juridical and political reality recognised by the United Nations organisation», expressing « its pride to be a member of the Saharawi people, the bearer of a message of peace» and who is struggling to «demand its (Saharawi people)
right to self-determination »

CDHS has also called the Representative of the UN's General Secretary forhuman rights defenders to «make use of his authority to protect the Saharawi human rights' defenders in Western Sahara » and warned about the dangers that can be generated out of the propagation « of speeches of hatred that
can but poison a stability so awaited for by Moroccan and Saharawi people».
 
At last, the CDHS expressed its conviction that human rights violations perpetrated by Moroccan authorities against Saharawi civilians in Western Sahara will not stop but through « a final and fair settlement of the political status of the non-self-governing territory (Saharawi) ». (SPS)

010/090/999/TRD 221351 Feb 04 SPS