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Swedish parliamentary network for Western Sahara calls for independent international investigation into torture of Gdeim Izik prisoners

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Stockholm, July 29, 2017 (SPS) - The Swedish parliamentary network for Western Sahara has demanded an independent international investigation into the torture practices against prisoners of Gdeim Izik group and the rest of the Saharawi prisoners held in the prisons of the Moroccan occupation.
In a message sent by the Swedish parliamentary network to the Moroccan Government concerning the severe penalties imposed by a Moroccan court against Gdeim Izik group, Swedish parliamentarians demanded the Moroccan occupation authorities "to release the prisoners as soon as possible" and called on the community to urgently intervene for an independent international investigation into the torture practices of the prisoners of Gdeim Izik group and the rest of Saharawi prisoners in Moroccan prisons.
The Swedish parliamentarians also demanded that the Moroccan government recognize all Saharawi prisoners detained in Moroccan prisons for political reasons, as political prisoners and release them.
"The network seizes the Moroccan government following severe and unjust sentences ranging from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment, pronounced against the Group of 25 Sahrawis for participating in the protest camp erected in 2010 by Sahrawis in the region of the Gdeim Izik," said the message of the network, signed by Mrs. Luta Johnson, member of the Swedish Left Party and Mr. Johan Buser, deputy of the Social Democratic Party.
"Hundreds of Saharawi families decided in 2010 to protest peacefully by erecting their tents in the region of Gdeim Izik on the outskirts of the capital of the territory and to claim their basic socio-economic rights," recalled the message addressed to the Moroccan government.
"The Moroccan authorities have dismantled the Gdeim Izik camp by using force and using live ammunition, water cannons and tear gas," the network said, adding that "hundreds of Sahrawis were arrested and 25 of them were brought before an unfair military court which sentenced them to heavy sentences ranging from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment."
"The evidence relied on by the court is based on confessions extracted under torture and the submission of civilians to a military court is in itself inconsistent with international law," the network continued, stressing that "the pressure on Morocco led the latter to accept that the group of Gdeim Izik should be tried again by a civil court. "
"But in light of the sentences handed down on July 19, the civil court has merely reproduced the verdict of the military court," the network said, adding that international observers who followed the various stages of the trial described this a mock trial because the confessions used as evidence were extorted under torture without further investigation.
The Swedish Parliamentary Network for Western Sahara called on the Moroccan Government to respect the rights of the Sahrawis and stop the plundering of Western Sahara's natural resources. (SPS)
062/090/TRA