El Aaiun (Occupied Territories), April 19, 2014 (SPS) - The Moroccan authorities prevented Spanish delegations from taking part in a Sahrawi women conference on Thursday in the occupied city of El Aaiun, representing Various social and political organizations, indicated a letter sent to the UN Security Council signed by some of these organizations.
The aim of their participation in the conference was ‘to share with Sahrawi Women their legitimate hopes for self-determination and to monitor the Human Rights situation, specifically Women´s Rights, in Western Sahara.’
‘As civil and political organizations, we express our concern about the arbitrary rejection of entry of Spanish citizens to the Western Sahara that has prevented international delegations meeting with the Sahrawi civil society and to receive testimonies of violations of Human and Women´s Rights,’ lamented the letter.
‘We are especially alarmed by the continuous and grave human rights violations by the Moroccan Authorities that have been denounced by various UN bodies, most recently by Special Rapporteur on torture on his Mission to Morocco (A/HRC/22/53/Add.2) and by several international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch , Amnesty International , the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights . These rights need to be monitored by independent international organizations,’ it added.
Moreover,the letter demanded the Security Council to expand the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to include sustained human rights monitoring.
The letter was signed by the Association of Friendship with the Sahrawi People of Seville, Mundubat, EHBildu, the Association of Solidarity with the Sahrawi People of the Canary Islands, Khaimah Group Friends of SADR, Andalusian Network of Support for Saharawi Women, Sahrawi Resistence, ALOUDA Cantabria and Solidarity Platform Lebrija. (SPS)
062