London (U.K), April, 14, 2017 (SPS) - The Moroccan occupation forces continue to violate children’s rights in Western Sahara every day, and in countless ways, said the UK-based organization for the defence of Sahrawi people’s rights Adala UK.
The Non-governmental Organization said, in a communiqué that “none of the children who find themselves in the vicinity of the regular peaceful demonstrations that take place in the occupied territories” to demand Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination “is ever too young to be safe from the Moroccan police.”
It holds up in example several cases, including that of Alkanti Alalaoui a twelve-year old boy, deaf and with a learning disability, who was was arrested by the Moroccan forces on 29 March whilst he was sitting at the door of his house.
Alkanti was savagely beaten and injured to his face and other parts of his body before being forced into a car belonging to the Moroccan forces, taking him to an unknown location.
His neighbors protested in solidarity with him. The police asked the boy’s family “to break up the protestors” as well as “not to make a formal complaint about the attack against the boy.”
The police finally released the boy who was in a critical state and clearly very disturbed.”
Alkanti’s mother made a formal complaint after all “about the police agents who had beaten and abducted Alkanti although these kinds of complaints are never investigated,” noted the Adala UK.
“The arrest, transfer and interrogation of children without the presence of their parents is a clear violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Morocco is a signatory,” said the NGO in its communiqué.
Adala UK called on “the UN and the international community to send observers to the occupied territories of Western Sahara to help guarantee the human rights of the Sahrawi people.”
It also urged the Moroccan government to put an end its policy of impunity for violations committed by its own forces against Sahrawi citizens, and particularly against children SPS
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