Shaheed Al Hafed (Refugee Camps), 24 December 2023 (SPS) - Participants in a virtual conference organized by Sahrawi civil society activists affirmed that Morocco's candidacy for the presidency of the Human Rights Council is "an insult to the international community on the one hand and a disregard for global human rights principles on the other."
On Saturday, Sahrawi civil society activists organized a virtual conference attended by diplomats, human rights defenders, and civil society activists. The conference considered that "Morocco's candidacy for the presidency of the Human Rights Council is an insult to the international community on the one hand and a disregard for global human rights principles on the other." It emphasized that "it is absolutely impossible for a country that violates basic rights with evidence of this to defend the human dignity of the individual."
In this context, the conference stressed that "Morocco's practices of arrests, abductions, and degrading practices against the dignity of the Sahrawi people in the occupied cities of Western Sahara, in addition to its military occupation of another country, are evidence of its lack of eligibility to assume the presidency of the Human Rights Council, which is entrusted with defending humanitarian foundations."
The Sahrawi civil society had previously urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to reject Morocco's candidacy for the presidency of the Council for the upcoming term (2024), citing Morocco's horrific human rights record in addition to its military occupation of Western Sahara, where it commits the most heinous human rights violations and refuses to cooperate with UN mechanisms and continues to target human rights defenders, journalists, and others because of their collaboration with UN bodies.