Madrid (Spain), August 20, 2019, (SPS) - The representative of the Frente POLISARIO in Spain, Jira Bulahi Bad, has expressed her strongest condemnation of the Moroccan regime's policies and the blockade imposed on the occupied areas of the Western Sahara, preventing access to the territory of journalists and international observers .
In a statement issued after the expulsion of the Spanish lawyer, Cristina Martínez Benítez de Lugo, Bulahi Bad has warned that “The expulsion of international observers, the lack of pressure from the international community and the absence of human rights mechanisms in the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO, is encouraging an occupying power to issue illegal and severe sentences against peaceful activists. ”
“Given the worrying attitude of Morocco and the impunity with which it operates, from the Delegation of the POLISARIO, we demand that the European Union countries, mainly Spain and France, ensure the free movement of their citizens and guarantee the access of international to the occupied areas of Western Sahara, ” Jira Bulahi Bad adds.
The Saharawi diplomat reminds Spain of its debt as “administering power of the territory under Moroccan military occupation” and claims the Government of Pedro Sánchez “to assume responsibilities and demand respect for the international regulations in the last territory in the process of decolonization in Africa.
The Spanish lawyer planned to attend as an international observer the illegal trial called by the Moroccan occupier against 8 Sahrawi activists arrested after the wave of repression and campaign of detentions against Saharawi citizens for their participation in the peaceful demonstrations last July. The intervention of the occupation army claimed the life of the young Sabah Azman, 23, and more than a dozen Saharawi wounded and detained.
Morocco has completed more than 33 expulsions, turning the occupied part of Western Sahara into an impenetrable territory for journalists, lawyers and international observers. "This situation leaves the Saharawi civilian population completely helpless and subjected to revenge and repression policies at the hands of the Moroccan occupier," the representative of the Frente POLISARIO denounces. SPS
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