Coordination of Associations of the Saharawi Community in France
After having deprived these men of their freedom in political trials under common law offences, the Moroccan prison administration has not stopped persecuting them and confiscating their rights laid down by international rules such as the “United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners”, known as the of Prisoners” known as the “Nelson Mandela Rules”. As a result, the Saharawi political prisoners, incarcerated far from their relatives in all the dark Moroccan prisons, are constantly forced to engage in warning or indefinite hunger strikes. This is particularly the case for the detainees of Gdeim Izik. and the group of students.
These deplorable conditions have pushed the Saharawi political detainees Abd EL-Maoula El Hafidi and Mohamed Dada, to engage since 20 February 2023 in an unlimited hunger strike – which they suspended after receiving promises from the local prison administration in Aït Melloul. For his part former asylum seeker in Spain El Houssein ElBachir Brahim Amadour (Saddam), who was expelled by the Spanish state in 2019 and sentenced to 12 years in prison in Morocco, continues his hunger strike. He has reached his twenty-seventh day of strike in the face of the indifference and arrogance of the Moroccan colonial regime.
This “battle of the empty stomachs” is due to the extent of humiliation and deprivation of the most basic rights, such as the right to food, the right to health and the right to a fair trial. rights, such as the right to spend the period of incarceration in a prison close to his family. The occupying power decided to compound the suffering of their families by deporting them to terrible prisons hundreds of kilometres away in Morocco, far from Western Sahara.
The Sahrawi community in France gathered this Saturday 18 March 2023 at Place du Trocadero in Paris to:
– Express its concern for the health of three Sahrawi students imprisoned for 7 years and sentenced to heavy sentences (10-12 years in prison), on strike since 20 February.
– Strongly condemn the human rights violations, the repression in the occupied territory of Western Sahara (torture, arrests, imprisonment etc.) and demand the unconditional release of all Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons.
– To ask the Kingdom of Morocco to respect the ratified convention against torture and the decisions of the CAT (United Nations Commission on Human Rights) concerning the Saharawi political prisoners Abdallahi Abbahah, Mohamed Bourial, Abdeljalil Laroussi, Nama Asfari and Mohamed Bani.
– Demand immediate action by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as by the UN Security Council and the Council and the African Union to assume their responsibility and further contribute to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the multiple UN resolutions on the issue of resolutions concerning the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination.
– Call on the Spanish State to assume its historical responsibility for having handed over the political asylum seeker El Houssein ElBachir Brahim Amadour, to the Moroccan State, who is entering his twenty-seventh day of hunger strike.
– Expressing our solidarity with the Sahrawi people in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and Southern Morocco
Paris, 18 March 2023
Coordination of Associations of the Saharawi Community in France
