Chaheed El Hafed, 05 November 2025 (SPS) – The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization and its 2008 Human Rights Award Laureate, the renowned Sahrawi human rights defender Aminatou Haidar, expressed grave concern, in a joint Press Release yesterday, over the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2797, sponsored by the United States and adopted on October 31, 2025.
The resolution renews the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) but, according to the organization, reflects “unacceptable alignment” with Morocco’s illegal occupation and its attempts to impose the so-called “autonomy plan” as a framework for negotiation.
The RFK Human Rights statement strongly condemned what it described as a dangerous departure from international law, stressing that the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination, enshrined in both the UN Charter and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, has been undermined by the resolution’s unbalanced approach.
Aminatou Haidar, speaking in the statement, denounced what she called the deep bias now shaping the UN Security Council’s handling of the Sahrawi issue.
“The unbalanced approach that now characterizes the UN Security Council’s handling of the Sahrawi issue is deeply regretful and clearly deviates from the principles of international legality and threatens the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination,” said Haidar.
“This bias, led by the United States and France using the Security Council to advance Morocco’s occupation agenda, represents a serious blow to the credibility of the United Nations,” she warned, adding that “as a Sahrawi human rights defender, I, along with many of my people, find ourselves losing faith in the fairness of the Security Council and in its ability to uphold international law in a decolonization case that is crystal clear.”
On her side, Kerry Kennedy, president of RFK Human Rights, reaffirmed that any meaningful and lasting peace in Western Sahara must be grounded in justice, freedom, and self-determination.
“To achieve justice in Western Sahara, and to resolve the Morocco–Western Sahara conflict, the Sahrawi people’s right to freedom and self-determination must be respected, and they must be given a voice within an international framework for the resolution of the conflict,” Kennedy said.
“The UN Security Council’s resolution is a dangerous departure from these principles,” she added.
The press release contextualizes the current crisis within the historical background of Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara since 1976, when Spain withdrew from the territory without implementing the decolonization process required under international law. Since then, the UN continues to list Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory awaiting decolonization.
Despite the 1991 ceasefire agreement and the creation of MINURSO to organize a referendum on self-determination, no referendum has ever taken place, leaving the Sahrawi people without a political mechanism to freely determine their future. Meanwhile, Morocco continues to repress Sahrawi human rights, systematically restricting freedoms of expression, assembly, and association, imprisoning activists, and exploiting Western Sahara’s natural resources through illegal foreign investments.
The statement further recalls that the Trump administration’s 2020 recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, in exchange for normalization with Israel, marked a turning point in U.S. policy—one that continues to cast a shadow on Washington’s current approach within the Security Council.
The organization and Haidar jointly urged UN Member States, particularly those on the Security Council and the African Union, to take immediate action to restore balance and legality to the process. They called for the establishment of an international human rights monitoring mechanism in the occupied territories and for Morocco to ratify the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
“Ignoring the rights of the Sahrawi people is an abuse of the values on which the international rules-based order stands and sets a dangerous precedent,” the statement concluded, emphasizing that the United Nations, the African Union, and the international community must redouble efforts toward Sahrawi self-determination and the full decolonization of Africa. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)
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