Chahid El Hafed (Sahrawi refugee camps) December 27, 2016 (SPS) - A delegation of the African Union Commission arrived in the Sahrawi refugee camps, as part of the three-day working visit to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
The delegation, led by the adviser to the AU Commission's chairperson, Lazarus Kapambwe, was received in ChahId El-Hafed by Sahrawi Deputy Minister for African Affairs Hamdi Mayara in presence of members of the Sahrawi National Council (Parliament)

Bilbao, December 27, 2016 (SPS) – the Sahrawi Abroad Community in Bilbao has organized Yesterday a demonstration in front of Moroccan Consulate in the said city, denouncing the unfair and illegal retrial of Sahrawi political prisoners of Gdeim Izik group.
 
Solidarity associations with the Saharawi people, the Saharawi community and trade unions have held a rally before the Moroccan consulate in Bilbo where they have denounced the repression against the Saharawi people in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. SPS
 

London, December 27, 2016 (SPS) -  The British Organization of Human Rights in Western Sahara, Adala UK, called on Morocco to allow the international observers’ access to Western Sahara, condemning the blockade imposed on the Sahrawi territories.
The NGO said in a message released Monday on its website, that hundreds of international human rights defenders, journalists and observers have tried to enter the Sahrawi territories occupied by Morocco and in 2016, 89 have been returned to Moroccan cities or expelled to their countries.

Rabat, December 27, 2016 (SPS) -The trial (on appeal) of the Sahrawi "Gdeim Izik" political prisoners, arbitrarily sentenced to heavy penalties by a Moroccan military court, was postponed until 23 January 2017.
The trial opened at a civil court in Rabat, under the pressure of international human rights organizations.

Rabat, 25 December 2016 (SPS) - The trial of the Sahrawi political prisoners called “Gdeim Izik group,” prosecuted by the Moroccan justice, will start Monday in Rabat, against a background of several calls for their “immediate and unconditional” release as well as for the judgment of the Moroccans who were responsible for “arbitrary detentions.”

Madrid, Dec 24, 2016 (SPS) - The Trade Union Confederation of Spanish Workers' Commissions (CCOO-Spanish) called for a rally on Tuesday in front of the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid to express solidarity with the Sahrawi political prisoners of Gdeim Izik Group.

Madrid, Dec 24, 2016 (SPS) – Algerian Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League Abdelkader Messahel said Friday, in Madrid, that the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), confirming that EU-Morocco free trade deal cannot apply to Western Sahara territory, "shows the rightness of Algeria's position."
Messahel, in an interview with APS, said "Western Sahara conflict is a decolonization issue and the territory is non-autonomous, hence the need for its people to enjoy the right to self-determination;"

London, Dec 24, 2016 (SPS) - Two lawyers, José Revert Calabuig and Nieves Cubas Armas, representatives of the General Council of the Spanish Legal Profession who had planned to visit, as international observers, the trial on 21 December of Saharawi activist Ali Saadouni and his fellow activists in El Aaiún. They were expelled from the capital of Occupied Western Sahara at midday on 20 December, sent by plane back to Gran Canaria.

Washington, DC, Dec 24, 2016 (SPS) - The US-Western Sahara Foundation heartily welcomes the European Court of Justice's recent ruling on the European Union's trade deal with Morocco and calls for the United Nations to follow through on the long promised referendum.

Sahrawi Times, Issue 3 - 23 Dec. 2016

As the year 2016 ends, it is rather very unfortunate that the global mechanism which is supposed to maintain international world order is still facing a lot of dysfunctionality. The very ones who are supposed to be protected by the international communities are hitherto the victims of a conspiracy of international negligence and silence.