Western Sahara Referendum Support Association (Delemont)
28 April 2008
SADR
17.03.08, diplomacy
The Republic of the Seychelles decided to withdrew its recognition of SADR.
21.03.08, scientific studies
A number of British and Irish academics will carry out research on the ground from March to June on Saharawi cultural identity:
Joanne Clarke and Nick Brooks, Western Sahara Project at the University of East Anglia, on the rock paintings damaged by members of MINURSO. Mrs Constantina Sherin Isidoros from the Anthropology Department of the University of Oxford will study Saharawi life before the Moroccan invasion and the upsets it has engendered. A delegation of student-researchers from Leeds University will start on 23.03. a visit to the Saharawi territories which will continue until mid-April. A delegation from the University of Cork in Ireland will carry out a similar visit at the end of April, which will continue until June. [SPS]
22.03.08, declarations
In an interview with the Spanish press agency EFE, the Saharawi president, Mohamed Abdelaziz considers that the result of the negotiations is a big disappointment. Asked about the opinions of Saharawi youth, Abdelaziz pointed out that there is no sign that could make one fear they will lose their national identity or that they would not join the armed struggle. "Completely to the contrary, they are the ones who are putting on pressure to return to war". On the difference of military equipment between the two sides, Abdelaziz points out that "the Polisario has 15,000 to 20,000 troops. The Saharawi President asked the Spanish government to do its utmost to make Spain "rectify the mistake" committed during its time when it gave up the process of decolonization of the territory". [SPS fr] [Diario Montanes]
22.03.08, the column of one thousand - Human chain along the wall - COLUMNA DE LOS 1000
About 2,500 people, mostly Spanish, stayed in the Saharawi refugee camps as a sign of solidarity to demand a referendum of self-determination following the initiative of students from the Complutense University of Madrid. For the first time, a human chain of solidarity 2 km long was formed on 22 March some hundreds of metres from the wall of shame, supervised by MINURSO.[more]
Fotos/Photos: http://www.saharanoroeste.org/columna%20de%20los%20mil/columna%20de%20los%20mil.htm + http://www.porunsaharalibre.org/index.php?option=com_expose&Itemid=68
24.03.08, anniversary
The Saharawi Prime Minister, Abdelkader Taleb Oumar declared that festivities, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the start of the armed struggle (20 mai 1973), will take place in Tifariti in the liberated territories of Western Sahara. Military marches and traditional cultural displays, exhibitions and a speech from the President of the Republic are planned.[SPS]
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND SOUTH MOROCCO
18.03.08, turned away
Yarba Mahfoud Mohamed arrived by plane in El Ayoun to visit his relatives, coming from Spain where he lives. Paralysed following a war injury in the ranks of the Polisario, he is in a wheelchair. As he was not returning to the Sahara to defect to the regime, the Moroccan authorities refused to let him enter. Thanks to the insistence of his relatives, he was finally able to meet them for four minutes before being sent back on an aeroplane.
Trial
10.03.08: The court of El-Ayoun handed down a sentence for a first conviction to two Saharawi political detainees, Said Mohamed Lamine Said Lahnani, born in 1983, and Mohamed Elmokhtar Alouate, born in 1986, of six months imprisonment for "attacking, injuring and insulting an official on duty". They were arrested in Smara on 1 March 2008.
27.03.08: the punishment of El-Baillal, on hunger strike in Salé since 20 February is reduced on appeal from 8 to 4 months.
31.03.08: Elmokhtar Akhnibila and his son, Mohamed, arrested on 26, were sentenced to ten months' prison.
01.04.08: On appeal the sentences of Mouloud Barkouh and Khellihenna Dleimi,were reduced from twelve to eight months in prison. They were released, having served their time. Hamid Barkouh had his sentence reduced from 18 to 12 months' prison. [ASVDH]
Demonstrations, arrests
17.03.08: Trainees at the Office of Professional Training and of Work Experience in El Ayoun, organised a sit-in, outside the establishment, to protest against their marginalisation and the refusal of the Moroccan authorities to respond to their demands for work. The sit-in was violently repressed by the Moroccan police and several victims were taken to casualty in the Belmehdi Hospital in El-Ayoun. [ASVDH]
25.03.08: A demonstration calling for the respect of the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination, organised in the
Maatallah district by young Saharawis, was violently repressed by the police. The next day the police broke into the house of the Akhnibila family and arrested Elmokhtar Akhnibila, 65 years, as well as his son, Mohamed. His wife and daughters were injured during the police intervention. Elmokhtar Akhnibila and his son, Mohamed were sentenced to ten months in prison on 31 March 2008. [ASVDH]
Tan Tan Affair
A Moroccan policeman, Abdelaziz El Meski, 35 years, a member of the GIR (Rapid intervention group), received a head injury on 26.02.08 in unclear circumstances in Tan Tan, in the course of a violent dispersal of a demonstration. He died on 3 March in Marrakech.
Seven Saharawis who were not there were arrested several days later in various places. Among them the human rights defender, Yahya Elhafed Iaaza, a member of AMDH and CODESA, arrested previously in 2004 and 2006, and former political prisoner, Lahsen Lafkir (arrested in 2006 and 2007 and sentenced respectively to 3 years and 3 months in prison).
The others apprehended Najem Bouba, Mohamed El Bourkaoui, Mohamed Essalmi, Mayara El Moujahid and Salama Charafi were tortured, blindfolded and undressed in the Tan Tan police station for several days before being incarcerated in Inzegane, where Iazza on 26 March 2008 was the victim of an attack by four common law prisoners. [CODESA fr., eng., esp.] [more]
The Moroccan Ministry of the Interior accused "independence supporters of the Polisario of having mortally wounded a policeman, savagely attacked in Tan Tan". Moroccan political parties denounced what they called an "ignoble murder by Polisario separatists". For the Moroccan press, "the separatists assassinated a policeman", "martyr victim of terrorism".[El Pais, 03.03.08] [AFP, 03.03.08] [Maroc Hebdo International no 782, 07.03.08]
The Polisario Front denied any implication. The Saharawi President asked on 5 March for the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon to "intervene urgently" to save the lives of these innocents who incur capital punishment. [SPS] Saharawi human rights organisations in the occupied territories denounced the arbitrary arrests of these persons, whose sole and only wrong is to call for the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people.
Awareness-raising tours
The former political prisoner, Brahim Noumria was received on 5 March by the Vice President of the Canary Islands Parliament, Cristina Tavío. He expressed the view that the Sahara would become like Palestine if repression continues. He revealed that young Moroccans born in occupied Western Sahara sympathise with the Saharawis.[EFE, 04.03.08][Interview of Rabab , video]
Hunger Strikes
In addition to the 27 Saharawi political prisoners in the Black Prison on hunger strike since 25 February, other prisoners have joined in from Moroccan prisons of Taroudant, Tiznit, Ait Melloul, Kénitra and Salé. They are demanding an improvement in their conditions of detention and recognition as prisoners of opinion, as well as the right to self-determination.
A follow-up committee reported on a daily basis the deteriorating state of health of the 60 hunger strikers. On 14 March it called for "emergency intervention" to save their lives. Others called on the strikers to stop their action: the Coordination of Associations and Committees of Support for the Saharawis to the international campaign for the release of Brahim Sabbar and all the Saharawi political prisoners, as well as three Saharawi barristers Mohamed Lehbib Ergueibi, Hassan Benamman and Mohamed Boukhaled, who paid a visit to the strikers. [ASVDH]
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