Washington (U.S.A), 6 Nov 2015 (SPS) - Four human rights organizations called, Thursday, for the released of 21 prisoners serving long term sentences related to the 2010 protest movement in Western Sahara or grant them a fair trial before a civilian court.
The appeal was launched jointly by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture and the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations, said the HRW in a communiqué on Thursday.
In November 2010, the Moroccan security forces dismantled the protest camp that Sahrawis had erected a month earlier in Gdeim Izik, in occupied Western Sahara, recalled the NGOs, also citing the turmoil in El Aaiun, the largest Sahrawi city.
On 17 February 2003, a Moroccan military court convicted 25 men, including human rights activists, for their alleged role in the events, in seriously flawed trial.
“The bereaved families of those who lost their lives in November 2010 have a right to see justice done,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, cited in the communiqué.
“However, justice is surely not done by locking up a group of Sahrawis following a guilty verdict by a military court, based on confessions allegedly obtained under coercion or torture, without any other evidence linking them to these killings,” added the official.
The four organizations called on the Moroccan authorities to retry the defendants while respecting the rule under international human rights law that there is a presumption for release pending trial. (SPS)
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