Skip to main content

“Preventing the registration of Saharawi names, blurring to identity and culture,” an international campaign

Submitted on

El Aaiun (occupied territories), Dec 20, 2011 (SPS) - The Collective of the Saharawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA) has launched an international campaign under the title: “preventing the registration of the Saharawi names, blurring to identity and culture,” after Moroccan state recently prevented the Saharawi human right activist, Alarbi Masud, from registering his daughter’s name.

In a statement issued Monday, CODESA revealed that this campaign comes “within the framework of defending the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Saharawi people.”

“This ban comes after another one suffered by Saharawi citizens in other cities of Western Sahara and south Morocco, because Moroccan state deliberately and systematically confiscated most of the rights in Western Sahara and south of Morocco, in a way that target the Saharawi identity and culture and affect characteristic and elements of the Saharawi people,” stated the statement.

The Collective called on the associations and organizations of human rights as well as all Saharawi citizens and others to engage in this campaign to defend the Saharawi names.

The Executive Bureau of CODESA has assigned Ms. Aminatou Haidar, the Collective president, Alarbi Masud, first secretary, Mohamed Salem Lakhel, counsellor, to coordinating and administering the campaign. (SPS)

090/089