Occupied El-Aaiun, 10 December 2023 (SPS) - The Sahrawi Association against Moroccan Occupation (ISACOM) confirmed that on the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is commemorated today, Sunday, the occupied cities of Western Sahara are witnessing a "accelerated deterioration" of the basic rights guaranteed by the Declaration. It emphasized the need for the international community to stop the policy of double standards and end the "immunity" enjoyed by the Moroccan occupation.
According to a statement by the Sahrawi Association, the occasion comes this year while the occupied cities of Western Sahara are witnessing a "accelerated deterioration" of the basic rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including "civil and political, social, and cultural rights, due to the continuation and escalation of serious and systematic Moroccan violations."
The statement added that "Moroccan occupation forces continue to violate international human rights law, particularly the right to life and physical safety, and systematically practice torture." It also continues to issue "harsh judgments against the Sahrawis, lacking the minimum conditions for a fair trial, and resorts to revenge against them through the arbitrary deportation of the detainees away from their families."
"Sahrawi prisoners in Moroccan prisons face various forms of practices that violate their dignity, humiliate them, and seek revenge against them. They are continuously isolated in solitary confinement, subjected to beatings, insults, and denied the right to visitation," the Sahrawi Association highlighted.
The Sahrawi Association also emphasized that the "collective punishment" policy pursued by the Moroccan occupation against the Sahrawis "takes various forms that affect lands, buildings, properties, and livestock, including demolition, excavation, confiscation, and destruction."
The Moroccan occupation state is still "continuing its policy of revenge against Sahrawi activists by restricting them and preventing them from exercising their right to assembly, peaceful demonstration and freedom of expression and opinion, in addition to being expelled from work, marginalizing Sahrawi youth, flooding the region with tens of thousands of settlers, strengthening control over the vital and necessary resources of the Sahrawi people, depriving them of benefiting from them and improving their living conditions."
The Moroccan occupation forces are also continuing their tight siege on the occupied territories and preventing the entry of human rights organizations, observers and international media, including even the United Nations Special Rapporteurs and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, despite the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council calling for allowing them to enter the region to assess the human rights situation in the occupied Western Sahara.
"We renew our call to the international community to urgently intervene and fulfill its duty to stop the escalating Moroccan violations of human rights and ensure that the Sahrawi people enjoy the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which protect human rights, enhance human dignity, and defend their right to self-determination and liberation from colonization and persecution," ISACOM stated.
The Sahrawi Association also called for the necessity to "pressure the Moroccan occupation state to respect human rights in Western Sahara and implement the decision of the UN Arbitrary Detention Working Group issued on October 11, 2023, and demand the release of Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons, especially the Gdeim Izik group."
ISACOM also took the opportunity to reiterate "the need for the international community to stop adopting a policy of double standards and end the immunity enjoyed by the Moroccan occupation authorities, as it encourages the continuation of crimes that undermine the principles and values protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to enforce the principle of accountability, including initiating legal action against those who ordered or participated in the systematic torture."
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