Bir Lehlou (liberated territories), March 4, 2013 (SPS) - The Saharawi Minister of Justice and Religious Affairs Mr. Bah Dih Cheikh has appealed to the President of the UN Human Rights Council, Mr. Remigiusz Achilles Henczel, to urge Moroccan Government to revoke the politically motivated and unjust sentences against the Saharawi human rights activists of Gdeim Izik, calling for the need to ensure that their fundamental human rights are fully respected.
“I would like to call upon you to urgently make all the necessary representations towards the Moroccan Government to revoke these politically motivated and unjust sentences against the Sahrawi human rights activists and to ensure that their fundamental human rights are fully respected,” writes the Saharawi Minister, in a letter sent Monday to the President of Human Rights Council, a copy of it reached SPS.
He considered that this unjust trial “is just another episode in the series of the gross human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan occupying authorities since the beginning of Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara on 31 October 1975.”
The letter, in this context, indicated that a host of international human rights organizations, observers and groups have expressed deep concern about the proceedings of this unjust trial including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and Amnesty International which described it as “flawed from the outset.”
The letter drew attention of Mr. Henczel to the urgent need for the establishment of an effective mechanism for monitoring and protecting human rights within the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which unjustifiably remains the only UN peacekeeping operation of its kind that does not include a component for human rights monitoring and protection.
He, therefore, urged him to do his utmost to ensure the protection of human rights of the Saharawi population living in the occupied territories pending the decolonisation of Western Sahara in line with the precepts of international legality and the UN and AU relevant resolutions. (SPS)
090/089/000