El Aaiun (occupied territories), April 28, 2013 (SPS) - Thirty Saharawis were injured in a peaceful demonstration organized Friday afternoon in the occupied city of El Aaiun, capital of Western Sahara, repressed by the Moroccan police , said the NGO Amnesty International, quoted by AFP and adopted by the APS.
The demonstration organized after the vote of the Security Council on the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) without expanding its prerogatives to include the monitoring of human rights.
An Amnesty International team claimed to have identified thirty Saharawi protesters injured, 12 which of which it had a direct access.
Ms. Sirin Rached, from Amnesty International, told AFP that the demonstration, which organized in one of the main streets of the city, took place in calm, but Moroccan police “resorted to excessive violence.”
It is noteworthy that the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Thursday (2099) on Western Sahara in which he reiterated his call for a “political, just and lasting solution which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara” while stressing “the importance of improving the situation of human rights” in the territories occupied by Morocco.
“The Security Council has missed a unique opportunity to enable the people of Western Sahara to exercise their human rights through the establishment of an instrument of international monitoring of human rights that is sorely lacking in the region,” said the Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther.
He stressed, however, that “despite today’s failure, the resolution recognizes the need to improve human rights in Western Sahara.”
From its part, the American NGO Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights called on the Security Council to mobilize the UN entities, charged with the protection of human rights, to make monthly visits to Western Sahara in order to monitor the respect for human rights and to make periodic reports.
Expressing deep concern for the renewal of MINURSO’s mandate without equipping a permanent mandate to monitor human rights, President of the NGO Ms. Kerry Kennedy said, in a statement, that the decision “will leave the Saharawi people deprived of a permanent mechanism to protect the continuous human rights violations by Moroccan forces in Western Sahara.” (SPS)
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