WEEKLY NEWS

 

WEEK 22

24.-30.05.1998

 

22.05.98
Balance of identification

Convoked applicants since December 1997: 87 160

Identified applicants since December 1997 57 173 (398 of them non-convoked)

Identified applicants since August 1994: 117 285.

23.05.98
France
The French «Plate-forme de solidarité avec le Peuple Sahraoui» met in Paris in presence of Mohamed Sidati, Minister Councelor of the Presidence, deputees, representatives of different cities and NGOs, among them the Fondation France-Libertés. Committments were undertooken to organize a French observer team in charge of watching the referendum. The participants appealed to the French authorities to take a position of constructive neutrality supporting the peace plan.

24.05.98
Movement of Non-Aligned Countries
The Foreign Affairs Ministers of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries repeated their support to the efforts of UN in order to organize and control an impartial, free and fair referendum, according to the UN-OAU settlement plan, the Houston agreements and the UN resolutions.

25.05.98
Human Rights violations
South Morocco
In a press release the AFAPREDESA tells that in the city of Tan-Tan "unemployed Saharawis" demonstrated on 10 and 20 of May. The peaceful demonstration was violently scattered by police and a participant named Baba El Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh El Asri seriously wounded. In an other city, Assa, the workers of the health sector are on strike. They want their freedom be respected and the end of repression againat the Saharawi population. The Saharawi Human Rights organization denounces these violations and ask for punishment of the responsibles.
Occupied Western Sahara
On May 21 Mr Mohamed Najem Cheyguer Daha has been aggressed by a policeman in the city of Smara in occupied Western Sahara. His right arm and left leg have been broken, he had to be transported to the hospital. The authorities gave no informations to the family about what happened. This man was arrested several times since 1976. He is handicapped, amputation of the right leg, after being wounded by military forces which arrested him in 1989. Since released in 1990 he is suffering psychological problems. On August 1995 he was not allowed to enter the MINURSO identification office together with his family in order to get identification as a voter.

25.05.98
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim in his message on the eve of Africa Day said the OAU looked forward to a free and fair referendum in Western Sahara, whose ownership is disputed by Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

25.05.98
During his private visit to Morocco, the President of South Africa met with King Hassan II.
Mandela declared to be in favor of the return of Morocco to the OAU (ABC, Spanish newspaper), the same proposal SADR President M. Abdelaziz exprimed last week in his interview with the weekly Jeune Afrique.

25.05.98
Humanitarian convoy from Catalonia
As a result of the fund raising campaign of the last 3 months, which earned 650 000 US$, a convoy with 25 off-road vehicles and 5 ambulances started from Barcelona, to reach the refugee camps.

26.05.98
Human Rights
12 of the Saharawi prisoners condemned on 21 April after the manifestations of Lemseyed on February 24, came out after 3 month of jail. Together with about 150 friends who came to welcome them they went for a protest march. Dressed with traditional Saharawi clothes, they asked for the respect of the Human Rights in Western Sahara, the liberation of the political prisoners and disappeared persons and the organisation of a fair and free referendum. The liberated persons exprimed their concern about the situation of the 8 prisoners still in jail, condemned to 2 years. The AFAPREDESA, revealing this information, asks for immediate and unconditional liberation of all detainees and disappeared people and a inquiry about the serious violations by the Moroccan regime.

29.05.98
OAU
«We consider it is necessary to exclude the so-called SADR of the OAU» declared the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs in anticipation of the OUA Summit beginning next week in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (Al Maghrib, Moroccan newspaper).

NEW PUBLICATIONS

[Summary Weekly News,] [Western Sahara Homepage]