Moroccan association denounces Spanish police's repressive practices
Morocco-Spain, Politics, 11/29/2001

The Moroccan Sahara Association has denounced the arbitrary arrest, exaggerated checks and expulsion of the members of its association who wanted to participate in the 27th European conference of support to the Polisario, held on November 24 in Seville.

The association said at a news conference here Wednesday that it rejects the Spanish authorities statements that denied having arrested the Moroccan delegation. The association distributed during the news conference the minutes of the Spanish police that show that Spanish authorities actually seized the banners and posters as well as the luggage and personal belongings of the delegation members.

The delegation members, including four reporters, were prevented from reporting on the conference and were expelled from Spain.

The delegation members were first taken for questioning by Spanish security agents, were publicly searched down town Seville before they were firmly invited to immediately quit the Spanish territory.

The delegation members, flanked by security agents, were forced to go back to the port of Algesiras aboard their vehicles. All along the road from Seville to Algesiras, Spanish security agents relayed to escort them.

The association, which said in a release handed to reporters that these acts harm human rights values on the soil of a country considered as democratic, voiced amazement at "the preferential treatment reserved to the Polisario in Spain, to the detriment of neutrality."

The association explained that it wanted to participate in the Seville conference to raise the case of the 1479 persons detained (for more than 20 years) in the Tindouf camps, stronghold of the Polisario in south western Algeria, the case of the 1000 Moroccan children detained in Cuba, at a time a large number of these children's parents have returned to Morocco, and the case of the 5000 Sahrawis who are living in Spanish territory in deplorable conditions, although most of them are high degree holders.

The association equally wanted through its participation in the conference to launch a call on the international red cross and the UN high commissioner for refugees to enable the persons sequestered in Tindouf to voluntarily come back to Morocco.

The Moroccan government had strongly protested the treatment inflicted on the Moroccan delegation in Seville, describing the unfriendly measure as "an act of blatant, unjustified and unjustifiable hostility vis-a-vis Morocco and the whole Moroccan people."

Previous Stories:
  Sebta, Mellilia must be object to negotiations similar to those on gibraltar, paper   (11/28/2001)
  Morocco condemns Spanish accommodating attitude vis-a-vis Polisario activities   (11/26/2001)
  Morocco protests Spain's hostility acts against Moroccan delegation in Seville   (11/26/2001)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search