Western Sahara Referendum Support Association (Delemont)
10 May 2008
SADR
12.04.08, European Union The European Commissioner for external relations and neighbourhood policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, affirmed in an interview to the French daily "La Croix", published on 10 April, that the agreement on granting to Morocco "advanced status" could be finalised under the French presidency of the EU, which will begin in July 2008. "Advanced status" defines relations between the EU and frontier countries, within the context of the new European policy of neighbourhood, installing a closer cooperation between the EU and the countries of the southern Mediterranean and the former Soviet Union. The Polisario Front considers that such a status should require the respect of human rights and international law, from which Morocco is far from attaining.[SPS] <http://www.spsrasd.info/en/detail.php?id=1335> On a visit to Morocco on 17 and 18 April, the French Prime Minister declared that France is determined to help Morocco obtain "advanced status".[Politique européenne de voisinage, Maroc] <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/211&format=HTML&aged=0&language=FR&guiLanguage=fr> [Plan d'action UE/Maroc, 09.12.04] <http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/action_plans/morocco_enp_ap_final_fr.pdf>[Rapport de suivi Maroc, 03.04.08] <http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/progress2008/sec08_398_fr.pdf>
26.04.08, Algeria The president of the Saharawi Parliament, Mahfoud Ali Beïba, was received by the president of the National Popular Assembly (lower house), Abdelaziz Ziari, as well as by the president of the Algerian Council of the Nation (upper house) Abdelkader.Bensalah. [SPS]
29.04.08, Mauritania The special envoy of the Saharawi President, El-Khalil Sidi Mohamed, Saharawi Minister responsible for the occupied territories and Saharawi communities abroad, was received in an audience with the President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, (RIM), Sidi Mohamed ould Cheikh Abdallahi. [AMI]
30.04.08, SADR The Government Council has prepared draft laws regulating the relations between the parliament and the government. He also reviewed drafts relating to building and development in the liberated territories. [SPS]
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AND SOUTH MOROCCO
Demonstrations, arrests, repression A sit-in for self-determination, organised on 27 March 2008 by a group of young Saharawis in the Almatar quarter in El-Ayoun, was violently dispersed. Bullahi Mohamed Bachri, a student born in 1990, was tortured for four hours before being released. He gives a detailed description of the methods used. [ASVDH, 04.04.08] <http://asvdh.net/english/?p=354>
04.04.08, Madrid Abdalahi Zoubeir, a Saharawi of 55 years, who has held various posts in the administration of El Ayoun, announced in Madrid that he sought political asylum in Spain because of the repression in the occupied territories. Zoubeir defected to Morocco in 1989 after having lived in the refugee camps near Tindouf. For several years the Moroccan authorities gradually released him from his duties, giving him no reason to have confidence.[ACN Press] <http://canarias24horas.com/index.php/2008040447504/nacional/un-cargo-de-la-administracion-marroqui-en-el-aaiun-pide-asilo-politico-en-espana.html>
08.04.08, El-Ayoun The police forces stopped a meeting of trades union members of the workers of the National Promotion (job-seekers) by mishandling and arresting several people. 15 people were wounded and 5 arrested. The Saharawi president, Mohamed Abdelaziz, on 10 April drew to the attention of Ban Ki-Moon, "his grave concerns". [SPS]
18.04.08, El-Ayoun, Tan Tan The police arrested Omar Lafkir, a student of 22 years, who went to a police station in El Ayoun to collect some documents. He was taken to Tan Tan on the pretext that they were searching for him in that locality. According to his relatives, the arrest was in relation to the demonstrations of 26 February and the death of a Moroccan policeman. Omar is the brother of Lahsen Lafkir, in prison in Inzegane. [CODESA] [more] <http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6544852&postID=9055513757619590209>
19-20.04.08, El-Ayoun - disillusion The inhabitants of Al-Wahda camp protested during the visit of a delegation presided over by the Moroccan minister of the interior, which had come to supervise the allocation of the first plots of land. They asked for a revision to increase the promised allocation and enough time to construct their new dwelling, whereas the authorities wanted to demolish the shanty town immediately.
This population, brought from southern Morocco at the time of the promised referendum in 1991, has been sheltered for 17 years in insalubrious sheds. The demonstration on 19 was tolerated, that on 20 was brutally dispersed by the police.
In a letter to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, the Saharawi president denounced the "savage intervention perpetrated by the Moroccan forces of repression against Saharawi citizens".
[SPS] [Telquel, Maroc, no 321] <http://www.telquel-online.com/321/semaine_maroc_321.shtml>http://www.telquel-online.com/321/semaine_maroc_321.shtml
Moroccan Universities For a long time the Moroccan authorities have been trying to stop Saharawi students in Morocco from demonstrating in favour of self-determination and independence, such as in Agadir in 2007, bringing in a militia made up of Moroccan students and criminals. These confrontations have been described in the Moroccan media at the time as confrontations between Berber and Saharawi students.
The same procedures are happening again. Since 6 April armed militias have been attacking Saharawi students in the Qadi Ayyad University in Marrakech under the leadership of a member of the DST (General Direction of Surveillance of the territory) of Saharawi origin, Mohamed Mahdi Tayar, in charge of surveillance on Saharawi students. Several students have been attacked in university precincts or buildings, in their own lodgings or in the street and injured. A Saharawi student, Khalihina Abu Alhassan, arrested on 13 April, is still in prison. The students organised a sit-in from 22 to 24 April to call for his release. During the sit-in, students were again attacked and one of them seriously wounded.
Another student, Baihada Loujaj, known for his pro-independence activism, was arrested on 25 April as he was getting out of a train coming from Setat, where he studies. He was coming to join the action of Saharawi students. [corr.] The Moroccan press presents these events as being a war between two groups of Saharawi students in favour of independence, one close to the Polisario Front and the other following the opposition of the liberation movement.
13.04.08, Another arrest for Naama Asfari Naama Asfari, Saharawi human rights defender and co-president of CORELSO (Committee for the respect of liberties and human rights in Western Sahara) was arrested in Marrakech by plain clothes policemen. Blindfolded and handcuffed he was undressed and beaten before being incarcerated in Boulemharez prison, accused of hitting and causing injury during a dispute with another driver, drunken behaviour and possession of a firearm. [see the numerous protests] <http://sahara-libre.blogspot.com/2008/04/arrestation.html> A first hearing in the court of Marrakech took place on 21 April in the presence of observers from the AIJD (International Association of democratic lawyers), from Droit et Solidarité (Law and Solidarity), OSSIN (Osservatorio Internazionale, ONLUS), AAA (American Association of Attorneys) and ACAT-France (Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture), the verdict is postponed until 28.
A French group comprising Claude Mangin, the wife of Naama Asfari, Frédérique Lellouche, responsible for the Maghreb in ACAT, Mireille Brun and Pierre-Alain Roussen, who attended the trial were arrested and driven to Agadir to be expelled by plane to France on the accusation of "disturbing public order". New protests.
[communiqué ACAT-France, AIJD, Droit et Solidarité, OSSIN, AAJ du 25.04.08] <http://www.arso.org/ExpulsionMarocComm250408.pdf> [amnesty international ] <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE29/008/2008/en> [more] <http://sahara-libre.blogspot.com/2008/04/expulsion.html> Quotation: the spokesman of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs: "they are charged with no penal offence and we hope they will be rapidly released. If there is to be expulsion, that is a sovereign decision of the Moroccan authorities".[minAE France]
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