Washington (United states), January 26, 2014 (SPS) - The chairman of Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Kerry Kennedy, has called on the UN Security Council to include, in 2014, human rights monitoring prerogative in the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
In an article published by the website of the US news TV channel CNN, Kennedy called on the United Nations Security Council, which is to meet in April to discuss the issue of occupied Western Sahara.
Entitled "A Forgotten Human Rights Tragedy," the article written by the chairman of the US NGO, stressed that "After nearly forty years, the crisis in Western Sahara has reached a point where the international community must act."
Kerry Kennedy added that "every spring, the U.N. Security Council has an opportunity to revise the mandate of MINURSO before it is renewed. With local and international human rights organizations – as well as the European Union and the U.N.’s own officials – confirming our worst fears about what unmonitored occupation by Morocco has meant for the Sahrawi people."
"The Security Council must add a human rights monitoring mechanism to the MINURSO mission for 2014. Such a move would be historic, but by no means revolutionary," she pointed out.
"We are simply calling on the United Nations to extend to the mission in Western Sahara the same international human rights standards it has applied to every other peace-keeping operation since 1991." (SPS)
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