Geneva, 21 June 2024 (SPS) - The demonstration called for by the "Daughters of Saquia" association was launched today, Thursday, in the Square of Nations in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council headquarters in Geneva, with a large presence of the Sahrawi community and supporters of the Sahrawi people's struggle.
Hundreds of demonstrators raised banners calling on the Human Rights Council and the international community to intervene urgently to secure the release of Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons and to work to protect Sahrawi civilians in the occupied part of Western Sahara from the repression practiced by the Moroccan occupying state against them since its military invasion of the territory in 1975.
The demonstration was attended by former Sahrawi prisoners in Moroccan prisons, as well as the representative of the Polisario Front in Switzerland and to the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva and a large number of foreign supporters from African, European, Asian and American countries, as well as a number of heads of press and human rights institutions and officials from the Sahrawi communities.
The demonstrators called on the international community to put pressure on the Moroccan occupying state to release all Sahrawi political prisoners, especially the Gdeim Izik group and the Student Cohort and all the Sahrawi prisoners who were unjustly imprisoned because of their public views firmly believing in their people's right to freedom and independence.
They also called for enabling the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to complete sovereignty over their land.