Copenhagen, Oct 11, 2011 (SPS) - The Danish NGO, Afrika Kontakt, called on the UN to make urgent actions to protect the Saharawi civilians against the repression and human rights violations committed by Moroccan settlers and security forces, in a letter forwarded Tuesday to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, related to the recent rising deterioration of human rights situation in the Saharawi occupied cities of Dakhal and El Aaiun.
The Organization noted that the situation of the Saharawis in the occupied territories of Western Sahara has deteriorated markedly in recent months and years, pointing to the Gdeim Izik events and the recent attacked by Moroccan settlers aided by security forces against peaceful protest in the occupied city of Dakhla which resulted in the assassination of Maichan Mohamed Lamin Lehbib, a 28-year-old young Saharawi, twenty-five of the them are still missing and many young Saharawis have been arrested.
It pointed out that the Moroccan forces “have once again brought about a virtual media blackout in Western Sahara and the cities of Dakhla and Aaiun remain under virtual military siege,” expressing belief that the Moroccan colonisation of Western Sahara is “a political and historical anachronism, as well as being both legally and morally reprehensible.”
The letter condemned the sustained repression by Moroccan settlers and security forces, calling on Morocco to immediately halt its brutal treatment of civilians in occupied Western Sahara as to release the twenty Saharawi human rights activists arrested after the crackdown of Gdeim Izik last year and all the Saharawi political prisoners who languish in various Moroccan prisons.
It therefore demanded that the UN implements an independent international investigation into the grave human rights violations perpetrated by Morocco in the occupied cities of Dakhla and Aaiun.
Africa Contact recalled that the current situation in the occupied areas “clearly demonstrates the urgent need for the inclusion of human rights monitoring in the mandate of MINURSO,” expressing continued solidarity with the people of Western Sahara in their struggle to gain the right to self-determination. (SPS)
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