Paris, March 15, 2018 (SPS) - Several Sahrawi political prisoners are on hunger strike in Moroccan prisons to denounce their detention conditions, and to claim and defend the right to self-determination, a source close to the Sahrawis in Paris said Thursday.
Sahrawi activist Naâma Asfari began an unlimited hunger strike on February 27th, solemnly declaring "it is better to die for dignity than to live without it".
On March 9th, he was joined by eight other prisoners of the Gdeim Izik group, despite their dispersal by the Moroccan occupying authorities in several prisons and their solitary confinement.
The Sahrawis, on hunger strikers, want to make heard their appeal for their people’s right to self-determination. The Sahrawi people have been deprived of it for over 40 years.
They also demand the application of international humanitarian law that requires from the occupying power, Morocco, to transfer them to a prison in the Western Sahara territory.
The French Association of Friends of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (AARASD) said in a statement that the hunger strike was decided while "all (the prisoners) are already in isolation, are threatened, are deprived of visits from their relatives."
In this regard, the AARASD has called upon on the human rights associations, international institutions such as the UN Human Rights Council, the French authorities to "support these prisoners in their hungry strike action, by appealing to the Moroccan authorities to stop these inhuman treatments and allow them to receive their families."SPS
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