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SPS Saharawi
community in France will undertake a hunger strike of solidarity with
Saharawi political prisoners this Thursdayr 31.08.05
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Paris, 31/08/2005 (SPS) Saharawi community in France will undertake a hunger strike this September the 1st 2005 to denounce "the savage repression" to which Saharawi population is subjected nowadays and to express their solidarity with the Saharawi political prisoners in Moroccan jails who are undertaking an unlimited hunger strike since last August the 8th, reported Polisario Front’s Representation in France in a press release of which SPS received a copy.
In the face of the dramatic situation Saharawi population in the occupied territories of Western Sahara are living: "abductions, arbitrary detentions, sacking of Saharawi citizens’ houses and the expulsions of their Saharawi owners, ill-treatment, torture, abusive transfer, deprivation of medical care", (…) "Saharawis in France (workers, Polisario Front’s official Representation, students and intellectuals) will start a hunger strike this September the 1st".
"With this action, Saharawi immigrants in France, all categories included, support the peaceful action of Saharawi political prisoners in the prisons of El Aaiun, Aït Melloul and Casablanca, who started a hunger strike since last August the 8th to protest against their illegal detention, against abusive transfer of Saharawi human rights activists in different prisons and against their inhuman conditions of detention". The Saharawi community in France joins thus "the hunger strike that will be undertaken the same day (September the 1st) in the 4 Wilayas of the Saharawi Republic", in solidarity with the 37 Saharawi political prisoners", the text added.
They "support the action of the Saharawi Association of the victims of serious human rights violations committed by the Moroccan State" as well as "the mothers and wives of the prisoners in hunger strike, in their preoccupation about the state of health of the prisoners and in their claim for an independent investigation" on the situation of the prisoners.
The text indicated that "the situation of the 37 Saharawi political prisoners, who were arrested during peaceful demonstrations, and who are imprisoned in the prisons of El Aaiun (Western Sahara), Ait Melloul and Casablanca (Morocco) is alarming: 12 prisoners in the Carcel Negra and 3 in Oukacha prison are in death agony".
On another hand, the Saharawi community in France "denounces the expulsion of journalists, parliamentarians and international humanitarian associations, who tries to investigate on the violations committed by the Moroccan authorities in the occupied territories ".
They reaffirmed that "the colonisation by Morocco of the Saharawi territories is not an obligation, expressing their deep attachment to their legitimate right to self-determination and to a sovereign State in Western Sahara", calling on the "international bodies, Governments, NGOs and to personalities to help in the protection of the Saharawi civil populations, in the opening of Western Sahara to international Medias and in the holding of a self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people conforming to the UN4s resolutions".
Hailing the release by Polisario Front of the last 404 Moroccan prisoners of war, the Saharawi community in France called the French Government "to undertake initiatives aiming at putting an end to the suppression against Saharawis in the occupied territories", demanding from the "Moroccan Government the immediate and unconditional release of the Saharawi political prisoners arrested during the last three months, the 151 Saharawi prisoners of war and 500 ‘disappeareds’ who are still in Moroccan custody, to stop the campaign of systematic suppression and to end the state of siege imposed on the Saharawi territories since the colonial occupation in 1975". (SPS)
060/090/ALG 311310 Aug 05 SPS
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SPS Saharawi
journalists and writers undertake a hunger strike of solidarity with
Saharawi political prisoners
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Chahid El Hafed (refugee camps), 31/08/2005, (SPS) Saharawi journalists and writers will undertake a 24 hours hunger strike of solidarity with Saharawi political prisoners, detained in Moroccan prison. They called on their "colleagues world wide" to help Saharawi people breaking through the Medias siege imposed by the Moroccan State on he occupied territories of Western Sahara.
In a press release publicised Wednesday by the Saharawi Journalists’ and Writers’ Union (UPES- in Spanish), Saharawi journalists and writers "will undertake a 24 hours hunger strike starting from September the 1st 2005 at 01.00 (GMT+1) to September the 2nd , 2005 at 01.00 (GMT+1), in an act of solidarity with their compatriots Saharawi political prisoners, who enter their 21st day of unlimited hunger strike, suffering from serious deterioration of their health besides the violations and abuses they are subjected to".
Hailing the initiative of the Government of SADR, who "called for a 24 hours hunger strike, this September the 1st, in the 4 Wilayas of the Saharawi Republic, in solidarity with the 37 Saharawi political prisoners", the UPES expressed its full support to any action aiming at "drawing the attention of the international community to the tragedy Saharawi population is living each day under the Moroccan colonial occupation".
On another hand it called national and international organisations and unions of journalists and writers, as well as human rights organisations to "help Saharawi political prisoners and Saharawi populations in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and south Morocco, by informing the international public opinion about the sufferings of the Saharawi people and unveiling the truth about the repressive nature of the Moroccan colonial authorities". (SPS)
060/090/ALG 311359 Aug 05 SPS
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SPS Three Moroccan associations preoccupied
about the critical state of health of the Saharawi political prisonerse
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Rabat, 31/08/2005 (SPS) Three Moroccan human rights
organisation, AMDH, OMDH and FVJ, expressed their preoccupation about
the critical stat of health of the 37 Saharawi political prisoners, who
are undertaking a hunger strike for the third week in the Moroccan
prisons, reported a joint press release publicised by the three
associations Tuesday in Rabat.
Recalling the circumstances of the arrest of these political prisoners
after their participation in peaceful demonstrations in Western Sahara,
the three associations affirmed that the stat of health of the
prisoners began "to worsen seriously, especially that some of them were
tortured during their arrests".
On another hand, they called on the Moroccan Government to start a
dialogue with the Saharawi political prisoners so as to "save their
lives, find solutions to their problems and create the needed
conditions that would help stop their hunger strike", the press release
added.
The
Moroccan Association for Human Rights, (AMDH- in French) called on
Rabat to the opening of a dialogue with the 37 Saharawi political
prisoners, who are undertaking a hunger strike in the Moroccan prisons,
to save their lives and to condemn the Moroccan authorities for having
forbidden the Association from visiting some of the prisoners in El
Aaiun, reported a press release by the AMDH, publicised in August the 24th,
it should be recalled. (SPS)
010/090/666/ALG/TRD 311104 Aug 05 SPS
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SPS Abdelaziz to Zapatero: Saharawi count a lot
on Spain for the decolonisation of Western Sahara
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Bir Lehlu (liberated territories), 31/08/2005 (SPS) IN a letter he addressed to the Head of the Spanish State, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, said that the Saharawi people count a lot on Spain for the "decolonisation" of its former colony and for the release of the 37 Saharawi political prisoners in hunger strike for the third week all ready.
"After 30 years of the official compromise of Spain in 1974, and 14 years after the signature by Polisario Front and Morocco of the UN-AUO4s peace plan, the historical, political and moral responsibility of the Spanish Government towards the Saharawi people remains complete", recalled the Head of the Saharawi State, in his letter to Zapatero, of which SPS received a copy.
"We
think that Spain is in very good conditions in the European Union, in
the NATO and the Un, to play its logical and natural role for the
solution of the conflict of Western Sahara", Mr. Abdelaziz estimated.
He indicated, on another hand, that the occupied zones of Western
Sahara are the theatre of an "atrocious campaign of suppression,
persecutions and iniquitous trials", these last months, within the
framework of a Moroccan systematic policy aiming at eliminating
Saharawi human rights activists". He gives example by the "37 Saharawi
political prisoners who are undertaking an unlimited hunger strike to
protest against Moroccan authorities’ repressive practices and against
their deportation away from their families".
Recalling the "initiative of good will" of Polisario Front, who
unilaterally released the last Moroccan prisoners of war, Mr. Abdelaziz
deplored the fact that Morocco "continues refusing to collaborate with
the ICRC for the release of 151 Saharawi prisoners of war and account
for 500 Saharawi civil ‘disappeareds’ ".
He also stressed on "the expulsion from Western Sahara of international
observers and journalists, political delegations and representatives of
the Spanish civil society, as well as the state of siege imposed on the
territory".
To the President of the Saharawi Republic, "the stability, development
and integration of the Maghreb pass, unavoidably, by a just and lasting
solution to the conflict". He added that Saharawis "have always
maintained historical, cultural and linguistic relations with Spain"
and that an independent Saharawi Spanish-speaking State will be "a
factor of balance, stability and good neighbourhood" (…) "who will
defend values of freedom, democracy, legality, tolerance and respect of
international legality". (SPS)
010/090/100/ALG/TRD 310812 Aug 05 SPS
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SPS
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Chahid El Hafed, 31/08/2005
(SPS) A 24 hours hunger strike will be undertaken Thursday in the 4
Wilayas and institutions of SADR in solidarity with the 37 Saharawi
political prisoners, who are still in hunger strike in Moroccan prisons
since last August the 8, 2005, and to claim for their immediate and
unconditional release, indicated a press release by the organising
Committee of the strike.
The 155.000 Saharawi refugees will undertake this big movement of
protest starting from 09:00 (GMT+1) organising marches at the level of
the 25 Diaras of SADR. These marches will be concluded by local popular
meetings during which communiqués asking for the release of the
Saharawi political prisoners, who were arbitrarily arrested by the
Moroccan colonial authorities, will be read, the organisers said.
On his part, the President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, will
chair a meeting organised at the level of the national institutions in
Chahid El Hafed, with the presence of many members of the National
Secretariat of Polisario Front and SADR’s Government, it was added.
The Saharawi Government called to this 24 hours hunger strike in
solidarity with the 37 Saharawi political prisoners, who refuse to
break their hunger strike that was started last August the 8th in
different Moroccan prisons, indicated a press release concluding the
meeting of the Council of Minister of SADR last August the 25.
Saharawi people would like to express thus its "condemnation of this
waves of repressions, deportations and iniquitous trials that strike
our citizens with impunity in the occupied territories, south Morocco
and in the universities of the Moroccan kingdom", the text added.
The action also aims at claiming from the Moroccan Government "the
immediate and unconditional release of all Saharawi political
prisoners, to stop the campaign of systematic suppression and to break
the state of siege which is imposed on the Saharawi territory since its
colonial occupation in 1975 by the Moroccan armed forces", indicated a
member of the organising Committee of the strike. (SPS)
010/090/100/ALG/TRD 311808 05 SPS
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SPS Tamek
fears of been killed without been able to defend himself, according to "El
Mundo"s
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Madrid, 31/08/2005 (SPS) Saharawi human rights activist, Ali Salem Tamek,
said he fears Moroccan authorities kill him without been able to defend himself.
He reaffirmed his will to continue with his 36 compatriots the unlimited hunger
strike they started last August the 8, according to the Madrid based newspaper,
El Mundo, in its Tuesday’s edition.
In an interview realised with him by Moroccan journalist, Ali Lemrabet, Mr. Tamek described from his cell in Ait Melloul’s Local prison, the circumstances of his abduction upon his return from the Canary Island by Moroccan agents of the political police, the interrogatories that followed in the criminal police’s station, where he met with the rapper of his wife, M’Barek Arsalan, an officer of the Moroccan secret police.
He also indicated that Saharawi human rights activists, Hussein Lidri and Brahim Noumria, whom he met in the Carcel negra in El Aaiun before been deported to other prisons in Moroccan land, were "in a very bad state with signs of tortures on their corps. The poor Lidri could not move his right arm" because of the torture he underwent, the same source indicated.
Asked about the motives that pushed the judge of El Aaiun to order his transfer to a psychiatric clinic in Inzegan (sout Agadir- Morocco), Mr. Tamek said it is "an old Soviet method used to illuminate the members of opposition by presenting them as mentally inapt".
Asked on his opinion about the statement of the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos, according to which the conflict entered in a new phase for resolution, Mr. Tamek affirmed that "this is exactly what Moratinos and Zapatero are singing since the PSOE took office in the Spanish Government.
"In reality, he added, both Moratinos and Zapatero abondened us for a miserable and illegal fishing accord". He deplored that Moratinos was relaxing with his Moroccan counterpart Benaissa in the latter’s hometown, Assila, "at the moment when the Moroccan political police was torturing Lidri andt Noumria". (SPS)
010/090/710 311927 août 05 SPS
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SAHARA
PRESS SERVICE