Washington, April 16, 2015 (SPS) - President of the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights, Kerry Kennedy, and Executive Director of RFK Partners for Human Rights at the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights, Santiago A. Canton, called on Wednesday the UN Security Council to extend the mandate of the MINURSO (United Nations Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara) to include human rights monitoring in Western Sahara.
The Security Council is expected to vote on the extension of MINURSO’s mandate on 30 April 2015.
MINURSO is the only peacekeeping mission established after 1978 without human rights monitoring mechanism and there is no international mechanism against human rights’ violation in Western Sahara.
“It is shameful that a small group of countries deny the Sahrawi people a mechanism of human rights’ protection,” said Kerry Kennedy, adding that “the reports on the violations on human rights in Western Sahara by Morocco are undeniable.”
The international community, she underlined “shouldn’t ignore the reports on the torture endured by the Sahrawi prisoners in the Moroccan jails and violence perpetrated by the Moroccan occupying forces against the Sahrawi people.” (SPS)
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