Referendum in Sahara: New appeal centers open this Monday
Morocco, Politics, 8/9/1999

Several new centers open this Monday in a number of Moroccan cities to enable would-be voters in the referendum on the Sahara whose registration has been rejected by the identification commission to lodge appeals.

The new appeal centers are located in Kelaat Sraghna, Casablanca, Rabat, Meknes and Sidi Kacem, announced the minister of the interior, Driss Basri, in a statement circulated on Sunday.

The centers will remain open for 6 weeks, the statement said, calling the concerned persons to go to the centers to get informed about the provisional lists of identified persons, withdraw copies of their files as well as the appeal-related documents. The persons who have not been registered on the provisional lists can thus lodge their appeals within the legal deadlines, the statement said.

The MINURSO -- a French acronym for the U.N mission in charge of supervising the referendum in the Sahara -- published last July the provisional lists of persons entitled to vote in the self-determination referendum the United Nations plans to hold in the Sahara in July 2000.

According to the lists, which cover the two first identification stages carried out from August 28, 1994 to December 22, 1995 and from December 3, 1997 to September 3, 1998, some 84,251 persons were identified as eligible voters in the referendum. The lists show that 46,255 of the eligible voters live in Morocco, 33,786 in the Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria) and 4,210 in Mauritania.

The referendum seeks to determine whether the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accords, sets up on its own or remains part of Morocco.

Last week, the Association of Moroccan Lawyers announced it will assist all Moroccan Sahrawis who were not registered on the provisional lists or those who wish to introduce appeals against contested registrations and urged all attorneys to assist them.

Previous Stories:
  Interior minister urges Sahrawis rejected from referendum identification to lodge appeals   (7/23/1999)
  Moroccan official party visits UN identification center in Laayoune   (7/22/1999)
  Some 25,000 people celebrate Morocco's success after publishing of MINURSO's provisional lists   (7/21/1999)
  Morocco deplores suppression of thousands of candidates to identification for Sahara referendum   (7/16/1999)

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