Geneva, 2 october 2026 – (SPS) – Sahrawi human rights defender El Ghalia Djimi called on the UN Human Rights Council to end selectivity in implementing international obligations and to ensure the application of the Durban Declaration, the Geneva Conventions, and international humanitarian law in occupied Western Sahara.
Speaking during an oral intervention under Agenda Item 9 at the 63rd session of the Council in Geneva, Djimi highlighted the structural link between occupation and racial discrimination, which targets the Sahrawi people for their identity and their stance on self-determination and independence.
She noted that the occupying power violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention through settlement policies aimed at altering the territory's demographic composition. Djimi cited concluding observations by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regarding employment discrimination, the exploitation of natural resources without Sahrawi consent, the linguistic and cultural marginalization of the Hassaniya heritage, and the repression of human rights defenders through stigmatization and hate speech.
Djimi concluded by calling on the Council to allow the UN committee to visit the territory and directly reach victims, stressing that combating racism requires addressing these violations as issues of human rights and international law, rather than leaving them hostage to a political settlement.
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