Saturday, November 19, 2005
A genocide can happen in W.Sahara
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES/REPRESSIONS
Risks of "genocide" in Western Sahara, Saharawi Ambassador to Algiers warns
Algiers, 18/11/2005 (SPS) Saharawi Ambassador to Algiers, Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, warned Friday against a "genocide" in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, which is the theatre of peaceful demonstrations for self-determination, since the late October, and was "violently repressed" by the Moroccan colonial authorities.
"Since the assassination of Martyr Lembarki Hamdi by the Moroccan police, in October the 30th, the peaceful resistance in the occupied territories of Western Sahara took a new dimension", declared Mr. Beissat, during a press conference he held at the Saharawi Embassy in Algiers.
"Nowadays, daily peaceful demonstrations are taking place in El Aaiun and other cities of the Western Sahara", the Ambassador affirmed.
These demonstrations "are violently suppressed by Moroccan authorities", he added, giving records about "hundreds injured persons dozens detainees".
"We warn the international community that the situation in the occupied territories may go out of control at any moment and change to be a real genocide", he insisted.
The Saharawi civil movement of protest "has got four objectives: ask for the holding of a self-determination referendum, the release of political prisoners, the respect of human rights and the opening of the occupied territories to the international medias and NGOs", Mr. Beissat explained.
In the face of "the demonstrators, whose only weapons are the hunger strike and the sit-ins, the Moroccan Government resumes to disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrests and torture", he regretted, denouncing "the accomplice silence of some European countries".
On another hand, the Saharawi diplomat announced that more than 40 Saharawi human rights activists, including Mrs. Aminetou Haidar and Mr. Ali Salem Tamek, will be brought before a Moroccan court in El Aaiun, this Tuesday.
"We call on the medias and humanitarian organisations to be the witnesses on this judicial masquerade", Beissat underlined.
"Thirty years of occupation are enough to prove that Saharawis are not Moroccans and that they will fight to the end to exercise their right to self-determination", the Saharawi Ambassador affirmed.
On his part, the Secretary General of the Saharawi Jurists Union, Aba Salek El Haissen, who was participating to the same press conference, called for the constitution of an international committee for investigation to "draw the light on the fate of thousands Saharawi victims of disappearance during the last 30 years of the Moroccan occupation". (SPS)
Risks of "genocide" in Western Sahara, Saharawi Ambassador to Algiers warns
Algiers, 18/11/2005 (SPS) Saharawi Ambassador to Algiers, Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, warned Friday against a "genocide" in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, which is the theatre of peaceful demonstrations for self-determination, since the late October, and was "violently repressed" by the Moroccan colonial authorities.
"Since the assassination of Martyr Lembarki Hamdi by the Moroccan police, in October the 30th, the peaceful resistance in the occupied territories of Western Sahara took a new dimension", declared Mr. Beissat, during a press conference he held at the Saharawi Embassy in Algiers.
"Nowadays, daily peaceful demonstrations are taking place in El Aaiun and other cities of the Western Sahara", the Ambassador affirmed.
These demonstrations "are violently suppressed by Moroccan authorities", he added, giving records about "hundreds injured persons dozens detainees".
"We warn the international community that the situation in the occupied territories may go out of control at any moment and change to be a real genocide", he insisted.
The Saharawi civil movement of protest "has got four objectives: ask for the holding of a self-determination referendum, the release of political prisoners, the respect of human rights and the opening of the occupied territories to the international medias and NGOs", Mr. Beissat explained.
In the face of "the demonstrators, whose only weapons are the hunger strike and the sit-ins, the Moroccan Government resumes to disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrests and torture", he regretted, denouncing "the accomplice silence of some European countries".
On another hand, the Saharawi diplomat announced that more than 40 Saharawi human rights activists, including Mrs. Aminetou Haidar and Mr. Ali Salem Tamek, will be brought before a Moroccan court in El Aaiun, this Tuesday.
"We call on the medias and humanitarian organisations to be the witnesses on this judicial masquerade", Beissat underlined.
"Thirty years of occupation are enough to prove that Saharawis are not Moroccans and that they will fight to the end to exercise their right to self-determination", the Saharawi Ambassador affirmed.
On his part, the Secretary General of the Saharawi Jurists Union, Aba Salek El Haissen, who was participating to the same press conference, called for the constitution of an international committee for investigation to "draw the light on the fate of thousands Saharawi victims of disappearance during the last 30 years of the Moroccan occupation". (SPS)
