El Aaiun (occupied territories), Feb 18, 2014 (SPS) - Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the Moroccan regime exerts tight pressure on the Saharawi human rights activists to deter them from reporting online about human rights abuses in Western Sahara.
In an article published Monday on the HRW website, the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, Mr. Eric Goldstein stated that the Saharawi activists caught filming police actions risk getting their equipment confiscated; bloggers have been threatened, demonstrations blocked or tightly controlled so as to limit the images that make it online.
He added that Moroccan police "systematically block" public demonstrations called by Saharawi associations that the Moroccan authorities suspect of favoring self-determination of the Saharawi people.
Last Saturday, revealed Goldstein, more than 100 uniformed and plainclothes Moroccan police fanned out in all directions to black the way of a group of Saharawis were due to participate at a demonstartion, called by a Saharawi human rights organization.
Goldstein, who was in El Aaiun along with a UK parliamentary delegation, indicated that plainclothes Moroccan officers turned him back from the place of the demonstration, adding that Moroccan police also blocked a British MP and his delegation before snatching a camera from their car.
He added that a Saharawi student, who maintains a Facebook page documenting human rights violations, was arretsed on the street by plainclothes Moroccan police officers, before they forced him to reveal his online passwords, and then downloaded and read his email and webpages on a computer at the police station, in his presence.
The student told HRW correspondent that when filming Moroccan police actions against Sahrawi demonstrators, he and colleagues crouch on balconies .and rooftops to avoid confiscation of their equipment
This explains why the imagery they post is often blurred and choppy
Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division concluded that Moroccan regime censors websites in Western Sahara via bullying and batons.
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