Occupied El Aaiun, February 2, 2025 (SPS) - No fewer than 307 journalists, legal professionals, or human rights activists have been denied access or expelled by Morocco from occupied Western Sahara since 2014 for attempting to investigate violations of international humanitarian law, according to a report published jointly by the League for the Protection of Sahrawi Political Prisoners (LPPS) and the French Association of Friendship and Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa (AFASPA).
According to this report, which was finalized on January 31, 2025, these individuals arrived from 21 different countries across 4 continents. Noting that Morocco has not tolerated any foreign observers in Western Sahara since 2014, AFASPA and LPPS specify that the Moroccan occupier carried out 85 expulsions in 2016, 68 in 2017 (including 5 European parliamentarians), 53 in 2014, and 34 in 2019.
Among these cases, at least 19 people were expelled from Morocco, the report adds, highlighting that these were individuals in transit to reach occupied Western Sahara or involved in activist investigations or professional activities regarding the human rights situation in the occupied Sahrawi territories and Morocco.
Just this Thursday, Moroccan authorities prevented Basque parliamentarians from traveling to the territories of Western Sahara, which they wished to access to "assess the situation in the occupied territory, gather testimonies on systematic human rights violations and the exploitation of natural resources, as well as to break the media blockade."
The report also mentions the expulsion or prohibition in Morocco of 7 international NGOs, including "Human Rights Watch," "Novact," "Lawyers Without Borders," "Friedrich Naumann Stiftung," "Amnesty International," "Carter Center," and "Free Press Unlimited."
LPPS and AFASPA further remind that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has been waiting for 9 years for Morocco's authorization to access the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
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