STATEMENT OF AMINATOU HAIDAR TO THE UN SPECIAL POLITICAL AND DECOLONIZATION COMMITTEE (FOURTH COMMITTEE)
Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates:
My name is Mary Beth Gallagher. I am here on behalf of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights (RFK Center), to read a statement from Ms. Aminatou Haidar, a long-time leader in the struggle for the protection of the human rights of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. In 2008, Ms. Haidar received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for her extraordinary courage and heroic leadership for human rights. Since that time, the RFK Center has worked in partnership with her. For over forty years, the RFK Center has worked for a more peaceful and just world by supporting the work of 41 human rights defenders, such as Ms. Haidar, in 24 countries.
We thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee today to read a statement from Ms. Haidar.
[Statement by Aminatou Haidar]
Dear Mr. Chairman:
I am honored to address your distinguished committee today on the human rights situation in Western Sahara. I speak here on behalf of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA), and all the Sahrawi people living under Moroccan control in the territories of Western Sahara. We seize this opportunity to highlight the assault on the dignity of the Sahrawi people by Morocco, which has systematically violated the human rights of the Sahrawis, who continue to call for the right to self-determination and freedom of expression.
Moroccan human rights abuses date back to 1975, when Morocco, in flagrant violation of international law, occupied three quarters of the territory of Western Sahara. The human rights abuses range from killings and torture to the denial of freedom of association and expression. Unfortunately, relevant United Nations bodies fail to make policy changes to address the situation.
Abuse against individuals speaking out for self-determination is a long-standing problem. Personally, I represent Sahrawi women, victims of the violations perpetrated by the Moroccan authorities. I have been a victim of Moroccan repression numerous times. Most recently, on November 13, 2009, I was detained at the airport in Western Sahara. I was returning from a month-long visit to several countries, including the United States, where I received the Civil Courage Prize, awarded annually “for steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk.” Several high-level police officials questioned me about my travel and asked why I had listed “Western Sahara” as my home on my entry documents rather than “Moroccan Sahara.”
The next day, the Moroccan authorities confiscated my passport and expelled me from my home country, away from my two young children, Hayat and Mohamed. Only after a difficult month-long hunger strike in Lanzarote, Canary Islands and strong international pressure, including from some countries in the Security Council, was I able to return to my homeland again.
The violations in Western Sahara are ongoing and continue to worsen. Under the pretext of criminal investigations, Moroccan authorities detain Sahrawis and impose harsh sentences because of their support of self-determination. There are more than forty Sahrawi prisoners of conscience languishing in inhumane conditions in the Black Prison in El Aaiun and other prisons throughout Morocco.
For example, CODESA vice-president, Ali Salem Tamek was among a group of seven Sahrawi defenders who visited the refugee camps in early October 2009. Upon their return, they were detained in the Casablanca airport and are still awaiting trial by a Military Court, facing death penalty charges. About seventy Sahrawi defenders and civil society activists have visited the refugee camps afterwards. The Moroccan authorities have not arrested them, but they pushed both Moroccan secret police agents and Moroccan citizens to assault them at El Aaiun airport and the other Saharan cities entrances.
Sahrawis called for their right to self-determination and advocated for independence by holding demonstrations in different cities throughout Western Sahara. The Sahrawi defenders faced brutal beatings, insult and humiliation from hundreds of plainclothes Moroccan police and some Moroccan citizens, especially in El Aaiun. Moroccan police and auxiliary forces responded with violence and brutality, arbitrarily arresting several protesters and placing some in Moroccan prisons. For example, Rabiaa Elfeqrawi, a woman in her forties is still in the hospital, now partially paralyzed after being violently beaten by the police for her participation in a pro-independence demonstration in El Aaiun.
On April 6, 2010, the Sahrawi human rights defender and vice-president of the Association Sahraouie des Victimes des violations graves des Droits de l’Homme (ASVDH), Elghalia Djimi, was assaulted and Moroccan militias smashed her car windshield with batons and stones near the El Aaiun airport.
On September 6, 2010, the phosphate Trade Union in El Aaiun organized a sit-in to protest the illegal exploitation of Sahrawi natural resources by the Moroccan authorities, denouncing the violation of Sahrawi people’s civil, economic and social rights. The Sahrawi laborers were violently attacked and some of them were injured.
Not only the Sahrawis suffer Moroccan repression, but also foreign observers and human rights defenders who come to monitor the human rights situation in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara. On August 28, 2010, fourteen Spanish human rights defenders were harassed after a demonstration in El Aaiun against human rights abuses in Western Sahara. In addition, a Spanish journalist and a Mexican activist were mistreated by the Moroccan police while supporting Sahrawi demonstrators in the Maatalla district in El Aaiun.
Recently, on September 29, 2010, the Spanish actor Willy Toledo along with the delegate from the Spanish State Federation of Institutions in Solidarity with the Sahara (FEDISSAH), Carmelo Ramirez, and other international observers, were attacked by Moroccan police in El Aaiun during the arrival from Algeria of a group of Sahrawi defenders. Some of the observers and Sahrawi defenders were injured by the police beatings.
As Sahrawi human rights defenders, our aim is to spread the culture of respect and protection of human rights in Western Sahara, to educate Sahrawi youth to opt for coexistence, tolerance and non-violence. We struggle to create a Sahrawi civil society that favors democracy and peace. However, the Moroccan state does not allow us to work or organize. There are no authorized Sahrawi human rights organizations in Western Sahara because they are not permitted to register. As I speak here today, my organization CODESA, despite having taken all the requisite steps, is not officially registered and has not been granted authority by Moroccan officials to organize its members. This denial of the right to register puts a strain on our activities as human rights defenders.
Mr. Chairman, all of these human rights abuses stem from one issue: the expression of the right to self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. This was also the conclusion of the unpublished Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report, after the visit to Western Sahara in November 2006.
It is therefore even more imperative for the United Nations to take an active role in ending the decades-long colonization of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco.
In the interim, the human rights situation in Western Sahara requires urgent attention. We call upon the United Nations to expand the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to include the protection of human rights. While CODESA greatly appreciates the leading role of the United Nations in solving armed conflicts all over the world, the exclusion of a human rights component from MINURSO’s mandate is another form of injustice that the Western Saharan people endure.
CODESA also calls for a new fact-finding mission to Western Sahara to investigate the recent violations of human rights committed by the Moroccan authorities in the Western Sahara.
Mr. Chairman, what I have highlighted represents only some of the human rights violations taking place in Western Sahara, to inform you of the suffering endured by our people under Moroccan control.
On a final note, I ask that you accept my greatest esteem and I hope that you remain in the service of peace and freedom for all nations and people of the world.
Thank you.
Aminatou Haidar
The Chairwoman of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA)
2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Laureate
El Aaiun, Western Sahara
October 4, 2010.
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Ms. Aminatou Haidar is the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate. She was recognized for her courageous work in support of the self-determination of Western Sahara from its occupation by Morocco and against enforced disappearances and abuses of prisoners of conscience. For over forty years, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights has worked for a more peaceful and just world. The Human Rights Award was established in 1984 to honor courageous and innovative human rights defenders throughout the world. Upon awarding a Laureate, the RFK Center begins a partnership with the Laureate providing technical, advocacy and legal support to achieve their social change goals. Ms. Haidar was presented with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award at a ceremony on November 13, 2008.
For more information, please contact:
Mary Beth Gallagher
202-463-7575 ext. 244; Gallagher@rfkcenter.org
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