Sunday, December 04, 2005

International Obervers ought to be present during the Saharawi trial in Aaiun

Paris, 03/12/2005 (SPS) Mr. Richard Sedillot, lawyer in Rouen (France), underlined Thursday, that "the trials of Saharawis must be internationalised, via medias coverage and via the introduction of international procedures", reported Algerian press agency, APS.

The internationalisation of the trials is "the condition that will make their struggle well known to the international community", considered Lawyer Sedillot in a report of his mission, publicised on Thursday by the French Association of the Friends of SADR (AARASD), after the presence of the French lawyer as an observer in the trial of Mr. Ahmed Hammia, who was brought before Moroccan court of Dakhla last August the 3rd 2005.

He Stressed that the dispatch of observers to attend trials of Saharawis is necessary to "inform the international community about the conditions in which the trials are organised", he estimated that it is necessary to "start procedures in France, or in any occidental country as well as before the competent international bodies", including the African Committee for the human and people’s rights.

"Even if this Committee can not adopt a constraining decision, it has got the ability to undertake an investigation and to write a report. We hope the recent African Court will start its mission", he noted adding that "a procedure can be started against the torturers, who are well known".

With regard to his presence to the trial of Ahmed Hammia, to the request of the AARASD, the lawyer stressed that this young man is brought before court "for having participated to a demonstration and committed acts of violence against the Moroccan forces of order while it is recognised that the demonstration was completely peaceful".

"Hammia was trying t know what was the fate of his father, who was abducted while the young man was still a baby. Moroccan Government has tried to buy his silence offering him money"

Hammia refused the sum and is still attempting to know the truth. His conditions of life and his family’s are very difficult. The Moroccan regime makes him "pay his desire to know the truth », he noted in his report.

On anther hand, he added that the "local political authorities, apparently informed about my arrival, did not allow the human rights activists to attend the audience and to meet me, hoping, may be that I would not go to the court. Everybody was forced to stay home because of an important deployment of the forces".

He also stressed that his meeting with the Moroccan defence of Hammia «was about to fail". "A police officer wearing civil clothes, pretending to be an employee of the hotel, told my (Moroccan) counterpart, that there was no Mr. Sedillot in the building. It was by pure coincidence that we were able to meet, because I was getting to the reception at the very moment when the Moroccan lawyer was about to leave. And thus we were able to talk about the dossier", the French lawyer testified adding that "pressures are apparently exercised but it seems that everything is done so as not to let the foreigners feel it".

He said that during the trial of the young Hammia "the public was exclusively composed of policemen, who were there to exercise another kind of pressures, certainly silent, but important". (SPS)

European Parliament and W.Sahara

SADR/EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT/SOLIDARITY
EP’s intergroup for the Western Sahara calls on Morocco to recognise Saharawi people’s right to self-determination
Brussels, 02/12/2005 (SPS) The President of the EP’s intergroup for the Western Sahara, Mrs. Karin Scheele and her vice-President, Raul Romeva i Rueda, called on Morocco to "be coherent and recognise Saharawi people’s right to self-determination", which is a basic principle of the international legality, according to a press release publicised last November the 29th 2005 by the Intergroupe in Brussels.
The EP’s intergroupe, which expressed its "concern" in front of the policy of repression exercised by the Moroccan regime against the Saharawi citizens in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and South Morocco, stressed that this policy is "completely unacceptable".
It also demanded "the immediate release" of all the prisoners of consciousness, without more delays and without any iniquitous judgements, claiming for "a jut and transparent trials" for the Saharawi political detainees in Moroccan custody.
The text also noted that the "situation of human rights in Western Sahara requires, now more than ever, a special attention from the international community".
The press release expressed deep regret about the blockage of web sites last week in the occupied territories as well as the successive aggressions against children, women, old persons, handicapped as well as the ransacking of Saharawi houses since last May 2005 for "the simple reason of been Saharawis".
Qualifying these practices as "inadmissible an revolting", the press release further underlined that the policy of repression imposed by the Moroccan forces is the result of the absence of freedoms starting from the freedom "of expression to the physical torture". (SPS)

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?