The CODESA secretariat
El Ayun, Western Sahara,
June 22nd, 2007.
An Urgent Appeal
"We shouldn't forget the Sahrawi refugees' misery"
Concentrating on the International Day of Refugees that the world
celebrates on June 20th every year in order to highlight the refugees'
problems and issues worldwide,
Bearing in mind the hard conditions that the Sahrawi refugees are
enduring in locations where the simplest basic necessities are missing,
And stressing the fact that this misery has long lasted for more
than 32 years, resulting in the Sahrawi families' splitting that
aggravated their suffering because of lack of nourishment goods,
medicines, and decent housing as well as the shortage of study and
education opportunities,
And as the serious lack of human donations that the international
organizations offer to the Sahrawi refugees,
The CODESA, the Collective of Sahrawi human Rights Defenders, while
appreciating the great role that many countries and human rights
organizations play in helping the Sahrawi refugees, it is calling the
international community again to move quickly in order to:
1. Stop the Sahrawi refugees' misery, being children,
women or elderly, and help them to come back to their own country and
live in dignity.
2. Call the World Food Program, the international and
regional organizations to offer all the necessary donations in order to
avoid any human catastrophe (as it happened in 2006.)
3. Appeal the United Nations, which is supervising
the negotiations between the Polisarion Front and the kingdom of
Morocco, to take all the necessary measures to protect the
Sahrawi refugees in the camps and all the Sahrawi citizens in the
occupied territories from any suffering that may be a result
of the recurrent delays to find a free, fair and permanent
solution for the Western Sahara issue.
The CODESA secretariat
El Ayun, Western Sahara.
June 22, 2007.
An Arbitrary detention and fake trial to some Sahrawi citizens
1. Arbitrary detension to a Sahrawi teenager in
El Ayun, Western Sahara
On June 21st, 2007, the Moroccan Court of Appeal in El
Ayun, Western Sahara gave its order to arrest the Sahrawi teenager,
Mohamed Boutabbaa, and put him
in the Black Prison in El Ayun, Western
Sahara. This teenager was arrested by the Moroccan police on June 16th,
2007 because of his participation in a peaceful protest demonstration
in Maatallah district, in which the demonstrators called for the
Sahrawi people right to self-determination and brandishing the
Polisario Front flags.
Since his arrest, he was subject to interrogation at the judicial
police center in El Ayun. His family says that he was tortured because
of his participation in the protest demonstration and to
know where the camera used to take pictures of the
demonstration, had been hidden.
2. A fake trial to Sahrawi citizens in Tantan,
south of Morocco:
On June 19th, 2007, the Instance court in Tantan, south of Morocco
illegally sentenced both Sahrawi citizens, Lafquir Lahcen, 26 years
old, and Hmadnah Mohamed Salem Alamine,
35 years old, to three
months´ imprisonment.
The trial was characterized by complete police control to the court by
different repressive forces that banned the Sahrawi citizens from
attending the trial, lacking the necessary conditions, especially the
presence of a defence lawyer.
Despite the fact that the Moroccan court tried to accuse them of
different charges, Lafquir Lahcen and Hmadnah Mohamed Salem Alamine
streesed the real reason for their arrest, which is their participation
in the peaceful demonstrations on May 20th, 2007 in Ain Arrahma
neighbourhood in Tantan. The demonstrations called for the Sahrawi
people´s right to self-determination and independence.
Lafquir Lahcen had been arrested on July 18th, 2005 in Tantan by the
Moroccan authorities and was sentenced to a year and a half
imprisonment in the local prison of Inezegane, Morocco. He was released
on January 15th, 2007.
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