Vol. 75/No. 2      January 17, 2011

As one of the delegates from West Sahara, Lakhal presented a forum at the festival on the fight for independence of the Sahrawi people against the occupation of their land by Morocco. “Ms. Mariam Bourhimi and Ms. Kalthoum Lebsir were arrested upon their arrival at Casablanca airport and immediately taken into custody, while the other members of the delegation were thoroughly searched,” wrote Lakhal. “The Moroccan police confiscated all the documents, books, bags, T-shirts, and anything they had that could be related to the festival.” Following this harassment most of the delegation was allowed to fly to El-Aaiún, the occupied capital of Western Sahara, later that day.

“The two detainees, Mariam and Kalthoum, were transferred the next day in police cars from Casablanca to the occupied capital of Western Sahara, where they were brought before the Moroccan colonial court. The Moroccan prosecutor decided to release Kalthoum without charges, while Mariam was temporarily released and will be called again to court next March for more investigation.”

The arrests and harassment take place as protests mount by Sahrawis in the occupied territories against repression by the Moroccan regime. Tens of thousands of Sahrawis live in exile in camps in the desert on the Algerian side of the border with Morocco. More than 100 Sahrawi delegates attended the South African festival, most of them from the refugee camps and 29 from the occupied territories.

In face of a growing independence struggle by the Sahrawi people, led by the national liberation group the Polisario Front, Spain ceded control of Western Sahara in 1975 to the semicolonial regimes of Mauritania and Morocco. The Polisario Front launched a war against the occupying powers, defeating the Mauritanian forces within a few years. But when the war ended in 1991 the Moroccan government controlled 80 percent of Western Sahara. The independence movement has been participating since then in UN-sponsored negotiations for a referendum on Sahrawi independence.

The recent Moroccan army attack on the Gdim Izik camp outside the city of El-Aaiún and a wave of arrests that followed were among the issues presented by the Sahrawi delegates to festival participants. The final declaration of the festival read in part, “We strongly condemn the continued military occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco and request the respect of the Sahrawi peoples right to self-determination and independence… .

“We denounce and condemn all forms of human rights violations, including persecutions, arbitrary detentions, disappearances and irregular trials, etc., committed by the Moroccan authorities against the Sahrawi civilians and demand the release of all political detainees and the disbanding of the wall dividing the territory.”

Eleven youth who tried to attend the festival but were arrested either at El Aaiún or Casablanca airports en route to the event remain in custody.
 
 
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