SAHARA PRESSE SERVICE

SPS
SADR/EUROPEAN UNION/INTIFADA
Polisario calls on the European Union to pressure Rabat so as to stop the "fierce suppression" against the civil population

Brussels, 25/07/05 (SPS) Polisario Front called on the European Union (EU) Monday to "immediately intervene" to "compel Morocco put an end to the fierce suppression" exerted against Saharawi civil populations in the Saharawi occupied territories, in particular since the Intifada of independence started last May, indicated Saharawi sources from Brussels.

In a message addressed to the Presidency of the EU (United Kingdom) and to the presidents of the Committee and the European Parliaments as well as to the high representatives in charge of the Foreign policy and Common Security, Polisario also demands that "an investigation be dispatched (by the EU) to draw light on the tragic events that took place in Western Sahara".

The letter, signed by the Saharawi Minister Delegated to Europe, Mohammed Sidati, recalled that since last May the 21st, Saharawi populations are victims to "a terrible suppression" for having demonstrated "peacefully against the Moroccan arbitrariness and to demand the respect of their legitimate rights, including the right to self-determination".

Mr. Sidati, exhorted the EU to "help the Saharawi population in distress" and demand from Morocco to "release all Saharawi detainees of opinion and stop the show trials".

Polisario Front criticised the "silence" of the European countries, which is similar to a given "permission" to the Moroccan authorities. The "lack of reaction from these States and the impunity" Morocco enjoys encourage the kingdom to "persist in its suppressive abuses".

The message highlighted the arrest and torture inflicted to many Saharawi activists, including Mrs. Aminatou Haidar, a human rights activist, "put in detention after having been seriously injured" after having claimed her people’s right to self-determination.

This activist, Mr. Sidati recalls, has already been victim to abduction in 1987 while she was 20 years old and was put in "the horrors of Moroccan secret jails".

"The fate Moroccan authorities reserve to Saharawi men and women such as Aminatou Haidar, is a humiliation to the human consciousness, and constitutes an insult to the values of justice, democracy and human rights", the same source added.

The EU, the message wrote, can not and should not remain passive in front of "what should be called from now on a demonic suppression by the Moroccan authorities in Western Sahara".

Polisario Front also asked the EU t demand from Morocco to "lift the state of siege" imposed on the Saharawi territories to enable the parliamentarians, NGOs and other representatives of the European public opinion to visit the region and see by themselves the sufferings of the Saharawi populations. (SPS)

010/090/700/ALG/TRD 251037 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/REPRESSION/FRANCE
AFASPA interpelates Annan and Chirac for the immediate release of Saharawi political prisoners

Paris, 25/07/2005 (SPS) The French Association of Solidarity with the Countries of Africa (AFASPA- in French) interpelated the UN’s Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and the French President, Jacques Chirac, to intervene so as to immediately "release Saharawi human rights activists" arrested and tortured by the Moroccan colonial authorities, reported a press release by the organisation publicised in Paris.

Recalling that since last May the 20 Moroccan authorities "violently react against Saharawi populations’ peaceful demonstrations", AFASPA estimated that "it is time to impose a free referendum without any constraints to this State that refuse to implement UN’s Security Council’s decisions. Peoples’ right to self-governing is a universal and sacred right".

The organisation noted that "the raids are launched to put Saharawi human rights activists in cells, brutalise them, as it was the case last June the 17th with Ahmed Hammad and Aminatou Haidar, now in jail", or in the passed week with the cases of "Noumria Brahim and Lidri Elhoussein, who were savagely tortured in the PC CMI (a detention secret camp) in El Aaiun, to be then transferred to the hospital of the city". Same thing with "Elmoutawakil Mohamed and Ali Salem Tamek (who) also joined the cells they well knew for long periods".

The organisation highlighted the particular escalade and the "dangerous attitude" of the General Director of the Moroccan National Security, general Hamidou Laanigri, who "personally led the interrogatories and seems to be loosing control of himself and of his ways of speaking to the persons who pass under his hands or with a population who struggled during 30 years of suppression", the press release underlined. (SPS)

010/090/666/ALG/TRD 250937 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
SADR/SPAIN/INTIFADA
More than 3.000 persons claim the release of Saharawi Human rights’ activist in Barcelona

Barcelona, 25/07/2005 (SPS) More than 3.000 persons demonstrated, Sunday in Barcelona, to claim for the release of Saharawi human rights activists and denounce the fierce suppression of Morocco against Saharawi civil population, reported SPS’s correspondent on the ground.

Answering an initiative by the Catalonian Association of the Friends of the Saharawi people (ACAPS- in French) the demonstration counted with the participation of the President of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira, the Secretary General of the Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (AuiA), Jordi Mirales, thye Secretary General of the PP, Rafael Luna, the Councillor of the institutional relations of the Generalitat, Joan Saura, the Member of the Spanish Congress from the group of the Inicitiva per Catalunya Verds (ICV), Joan Herrera and the Secretary of the catalunian Ageny for Cooperation and Development of the Generalitat, David Minoves.

The demonstrators raised placards calling for the immediate stopping of suppression in the occupied territories, which was radical these last months, to the freedom and independence for the Saharawi people. Other placards considered the Spanish Government’s policy regarding Western Sahara as "hypocrite".

In front of the seat of the autonomous Government, the demonstrators read a manifest by the actor, Marti Perefarrer, underlining the above mentioned claims.

The vice-President of the ACAPS, Neus Canelles, quoted by Spanish Press agency, Europa Press, stressed the "brutal character" of the suppression by Moroccan authorities against the Saharawi population, denouncing "the iniquitous trials that have no legal guarantees" actually launched against Saharawi human rights activists, as well as the "the unbelievably heavy sentences that goes to 20 years imprisonment", decided by the Moroccan colonial court against them.

On his part Joan Herrera estimated that this demonstration is an "additional expression that the citizens do disagree with the policy of the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos". He described the Minister’s position regarding the Western Sahara as "a black mark" in its policy, the same source added. (SPS)

010/090/666 251208 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
SADR/MOROCCO/MEDIAS
Morocco closes the path to the referendum process, according to a Moroccan political party

Rabat, 25/07/2005 (SPS) Moroccan Party of the Democratic Path (DP)-(Ennahdj Eddimocrati- in Arabic) considered, Monday, that Moroccan authorities do not have ''a real will to abandon the actual approach in Western Sahara by enabling the opening of the path to a democratic solution'' to the conflict, in particular by implementing the process of the referendum as recommended by the UN.

The Secretary General of the DP, Abdellah Elharif, indicated in an interview to Moroccan magazine, "Le Journal'' that ''the Moroccan official position was marked with a regression in the question" of Western Sahara compared to its former international engagements.

''While the power has accepted a solution on the basis of the principle of self-determination and the UN’s olan for the organisation of a referendum and stressed on discussing the details regarding to the lists of voters, it seems now that it decided to deny its former engagements and called to a negotiated solution on the basis of the Moroccan sovereignty on Western Sahara'', he added.

The SG of the Moroccan Party, who sent last week a letter to the royal palace rejecting an invitation to participate to a meeting on Western Sahara, noted that ''the power seems to be strongly returning to the approach of security as it can be understood from the numerous arrests of Saharawi activists recently and the heavy sentences pronounced against them''.

According to Abdallah Elharrif, ''The dossier of Western Sahara is monopolised by the palace, the public opinion and political forces been imprisoned in the role of the unconditional support to the official decisions''.

He also stressed that the ''the forces calling to a democratic solution of the question of Western Sahara based on the principle of self-determination are put under terrible pressures, even after that Morocco has accepted the principle of self-determination since 1981 in Nairobi''.

On another hand, the SG of the ''Democratic Path'' estimated that ''the contradictory positions of the State on the question of Western Sahara reflects the contradiction between the completely anti-democratic nature of the system and the dominating class, and the attempts it is trying to advance of a democratic State that respects its engagements vis-à-vis of the international community and legality''. (SPS)

010/090/700/ALG/TRD 251804 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/INTIFADA/SPAIN/WRITERS
"No stability in the Maghreb without self-determination for the Saharawi people", affirm Spanish writers

Madrid, 25/07/2005 (SPS) Spanish writers said to be "convinced" that there will be no stability in the Maghreb without the exercise of self-determination by the Saharawi people, in an article publicised Monday in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

''We are convinced that there will be no stability in the zone if Saharawis are deprived from deciding, conforming to the logic of decolonisation and to UN’s resolutions, if they want to integrate in Morocco or prefer independence'', assert Gonzalo Moure, Suso de Toro, Ana Rosetti and Ricardo Gomez.

The four co-signatories of a letter, addressed last July 2004 by 500 writers, artists, journalists andfilm makers to José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, in which they asked their Government to opt in a clear manner for the support of the international law in the conflict of Western Sahara.

The article of Moure, Toro, Rosetti and Gomez answers an appeal publicised last July the 17th, in the same newspaper as an advertisement, by Moroccan writers who blamed their Spanish counterparts for their position on Western Sahara.

In their article, the four Spanish writers recall that the position expressed in the letter addressed to Zapatero is based on the UN’s resolutions which consider Spain as the administrating power of the territory and represent the point of view of the majority of Spanish people, of whom 72 %, according to a recent investigation by the Institut royal Elcano, are in favour of th independence of Western Sahara.

Referring to the Moroccan writers attempts in their appeal to draw the parallel between the Saharawi question and the refusal of separatism in the Basque country in Spain, defined as "misleading", the Spanish writers affirmed that they support freedom in the entire world: ''freedom of thought, expression, demonstration and of choice. Rights, which are violated now, they noted, in Western Sahara as it can be seen in the sentencing of Saharawis to 20 years imprisonment for having participated in demonstrations, the terrible conditions of imprisonment of Mrs. Aminatou Haidar and the recent detention of Ali Salem Tamek''.

The Spanish writers underlined that the proof that these rights are violated also consists in the absence of legal guarantees for the arrested people who are brutalised and tortured as well as the expulsion of Spanish and foreign delegations and organisations of human rights that want to visit the Western Sahara.

''The testimonies of journalists confirm detentions and ill-treatments. In front of this situation we can but demand to put an end, once an for all, to the brutal repression and that a free investigation on the ground be enabled without restrictions'', they added.

''The Sahara was a Spanish colony that was not decolonised in conformity with ethics or with legality (...). The tripartite Accords (of 1975) were only the expression of an agreement between dictatorships, which were anyhow declared null by the UN (...). These accords are an example on the infamy of our old regime'', they put.

On another hand, they wondered why Morocco refuse the organisation of a self-determination referendum, especially that it pretends that Saharawis do not want independence.

Answering the allegations mentioned in Moroccan writers appeal on the conditions of life in the Saharawi refugee cams, the Spanish writers said that it will be very difficult to believe the "atmosphere of freedom and dignity" that prevails in the camps unless one visit them. (SPS)

010/090/700/ALG/TRD 251815 Jul 05 SPS

SPS
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/REPRESSION
Three Saharawi human rights activists submitted to the worst methods of torture

El Aaiun (occupied territories), 25/07/2005 (SPS) Three Saharawi human rights activists, Brahim Noumria, Houssein Lidri and Laarbi Massoud were submitted to the worst methods of torture and abuses since their arrest last July the 20, according to their own testimonies.

They were beaten and underwent the most horrible methods of tortures. "They tied their feet and their hands behind and with heavy weight on their backs they are suspended horizontally with an iron bar", or they are attached "like a sausage on a long table and they put the victims head in a mixture of detergent and urine to asphyxiate him". Other method is the use of electricity on the sensitive organs of the corp, "suspension in the position the 'roosted chicken'' for hours", in the secret torture buildings of PC-CMI (a secret detention camp) in El Aaiun, it was indicated.

The torturers accountable for these crimes are Hamidou Laânigri, Head of the royal police, General Direction of the Territorial Security (DST- in French), who personally supervised the interrogatory with Saharawi human rights’ activist, Moutawakil Mohamed in Casablanca.

There is also some famous Moroccan torturers in Western Sahara who took part to the torture of the activists, mainly the famous torturer, Ichi Abou El Hassan, Commandant of the Group of Urban Security, Arsin M'Barak, Captain of the local police since the era of Bassri, Brahim Sami, Mheiri Abdellah, Commandant of the Mobile company of intervention (CMI), Abdelhak Rabii, captain of the RG in El Aaiun among others.

Talking about the human rights’ situation in Western Sahara, Saharawi Minister of the occupied territories, Khalil Sidi M’Hamed warned about the risks "of an escalation which consequences will be unpredictable for the region".

Giving an account about the human rights situation he estimated to "more than 3.500 persons reported missing since October the 31st, 1975, the date of the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara, including 526 Saharawi civilians and 150 fighters whose fate is still unknown". More than 15.000 persons were victims to arbitrary detention, more than 20.000 victims to torture and physical and moral abuses, 250 victims of iniquitous trials in Moroccan civil and military courts, 115 persons assassinated, more than 15.000 persons deported from the occupied territories to the interior of Morocco and more than 200.000 persons exiled to other neighbouring countries, it should be recalled. (SPS).

010/090/110/ALG/TRD 252017 Jul 05 SPS