NGOs stage sit-in to denounce Ali Lmrabet statements

Representatives of several Sahrawi human rights organisations staged in Rabat a sit-in to denounce the statements of journalist Ali Lmrabet ran last January by "Al Moustakil" weekly.

The protest sit-in was observed while a hearing was going on in Rabat first instance tribunal regarding a complaint introduced against Lmrabet by Ahmed Kheir, spokesman of the Laayoune-based Association of parents of the Sahrawis victim of repression in the Tindouf camps" (PASVERTI).

The demonstrators, also including representatives of the "Association for the Liberation of the Sequestrated in Tindouf" and the association "Sahrawi Tribune for Unity and Fraternity," were carrying photos of people victim of torture and harassment in Polisario Tindouf camps, located in the South-West region of Algeria.

Some of the demonstrators told the Moroccan News agency they were committed to their "moroccanity and the Alawite Throne," stressing that more than 80 pc of the Sahrawis are not separatists, but Moroccans.

The separatist Polisario movement has been fighting Morocco over the Moroccan Southern provinces, known as the Sahara, retrieved in 1975 following the signing of the Madrid accords by Morocco, Spain and Mauritania.

The associations and others held last February 3rd in Rabat sit-ins in front of several Moroccan departments, including the Parliament, the Communications ministry, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH), to denounce the statements of Ali Lmrabet concerning the situation of the Moroccans detained in Tindouf camps.

Lmrabet alleged in the morrow of a visit to Tindouf camps that Sahrawis living in the camps enjoyed "movement freedom and did not wish to go back to Morocco."