For the freedom of the Sahrawi political prisoners held in Morocco

Monday, January 30, 2017

Faced with the continuation on January 23rd, in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco of the trial of Sahrawi human rights activists, detained by the Moroccan authorities and already previously illegally prosecuted in a military tribunal on February 2013 and sentenced from 20 years to life imprisonment, the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation promotes among the Portuguese organizations the subscription of the text “For the freedom of the Sahrawi political prisoners held in Morocco”.

A delegation in representation of the subscribing organizations has presented a copy of the text to the Moroccan Embassy in Portugal, as well as sent this position to all the political forces in the Portuguese Parliament, to the Portuguese Government and to the United Nations.

The text:
For the freedom of the Sahrawi political prisoners held in Morocco

On January 23rd, the Sahrawi activists in defence of human rights, known as the Gdeim Izik Group will be tried in the civil court of Sale, in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco. Held by the Moroccan authorities and previously tried illegally by a military court, in February 2013, receiving sentences from 20 years to life in prison.

Recall that in the 2014 Report by the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Organization for the arbitrary detention, the detention of the Sahrawi activists is considered arbitrary.

These activists were sequestered, detained and tortured in the days and weeks after the violent dismantlement, by Moroccan authorities, of the Gdeim Izik protest camp, in the occupied territories of Western Sahara that, for a month, in 2010, gathered dozens of thousands of Sahrawis, men, women and children, in a peaceful protest, to demand their social, economic and political rights.

In this context, the subscribing organizations:

- reiterate their solidarity with the Sahrawi political prisoners detained by the Moroccan authorities and demand their release;
- reiterate the demand of fulfilment of international law and the effective recognition and the achievement of the inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and, by their free option, to have their own State, independent and sovereign.

The subscribing organizations:

CPPC - Conselho Português para a Paz e Cooperação
CGTP-IN - Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses – Intersindical Nacional
Associação "Os Pioneiros de Portugal"
MDM - Movimento Democrático de Mulheres
APJD – Associação Portuguesa de Juristas Democratas
ID – Associação Intervenção Democrática
JCP – Juventude Comunista Portuguesa
Mó de Vida – Cooperativa
FNSTFPS - Federação Nacional de Sindicatos de Trabalhadores em Funções Públicas e Sociais
Associação Portuguesa de Amizade e Cooperação Iúri Gagárin
USNA/CGTP-IN – União dos Sindicatos do Norte Alentejano
Ecolojovem - «Os Verdes»
AAPC - Associação de Amizade Portugal-Cuba
MPPM - Movimento pelos Direitos do Povo Palestino e pela Paz no Médio Oriente
FENPROF – Federação Nacional dos Professores
STAL- Sindicato Nacional dos Trabalhadores da Administração Local e Regional, Empresas Publicas, Concessionárias e Afins