At the end of January, the Moroccan government shut down the independent newspaper, Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Journalists working on the paper believe the last straw may have been their recent interview with Aminatou Haidar.
The Sahrawi activist fasted for 32 days in December in Lanzarote airport for her right to return to Western Sahara, under illegal occupation by Morocco since 1975. Aminatou Haidar remains under house arrest, and Morocco continues to impose travel restrictions on Sahrawi activists.
According to Human Rights Watch, since August 2009, Moroccan authorities have turned back at least 13 Sahrawi activists at the airport or land borders, confiscating passports from seven of them, and have refused to renew the passports of at least three other Sahrawi activists. Sandblast, a British charity that aims to empower displaced Sahrawi refugees through the arts, launched an e-petition in February focused on Morocco’s application for “advanced status” in the EU. The most recent round of talks between Morocco and the Sahrawi resistance movement Polisario ended inconclusively in early February.
Polisario demanded “the immediate liberation of all Sahrawi political prisoners in Morocco, respect for liberties in the occupied territories and strict observance of the cease-fire agreement” as pre-conditions for negotiations.
Topics: Western Sahara