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The Saharawi human rights defender and ex-prisoner of conscience, Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, received Thursday in New York, the price of the US Foundation of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.
The legal director of the American organisation, Mrs. Marselha Goncalves Margerin, underlied that the price was awarded to Aminetou Haidar amonst a choice of 120 candidates around the world, "to raise awareness about the Saharawi cause in the US". 
The Saharawi activist also won the "Special price of Castellfelds" 2008 (Barcelona), the "Juan Maria Banderas" price in May 2006, as well as the price of the "Club of the 25".
The same year, the Saharawi militant received the American "Freedom awards 2006", by the American "Defense forum foundation". 
She also received many other awards such as the "Silver Rose 2007", by the international organisation "Solidar", and was nominated to the EU price « Sakharov » among others.
Born in Western Sahara in 1967, this Saharawi human rights activist who played a key role in the defence of human rights and campaigned for the release of the Saharawi prisoners of conscience and for the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination. She was arrested, tortured and imprisoned many times by the Moroccan forces. 
In 1987, she was arrested without judgement and imprisoned in many centres of detention before she was released in 1991.
Touring many countries she alerted the international public opinion as well as the Medias, the serious situation of her country due to the Moroccan colonial occupation.
She also evoked the Saharawi peaceful uprising, qualifying the "expression of the determination of a people who do no more bare the colonial yoke". 
Despite "the repressive stringinstaled by the Moroccan authorities since the illegal occupation of Western Sahara in 1975, the "action of the Saharawi human rights defenders succeeded in breaking the wall of silence, unveiling to the world the serious violations of the human rights", she underlined during a tour in France describing "the winds of revolution" when "the popular uprising started in El Aaiun in May 21 2005 because of the abusive transfer of a Saharawi prisoner of conscience from El Aaiun to Agadir".
This prisoner "has rejected the Moroccan nationality that is imposed to us, and rejected his Moroccan identity card", she added. 
"The speech, which was confiscated for thirty years, was finally liberated, Mrs. Aminetou Haidar, who "keeps a lot of hope that the struggle of the Saharawi people will continue for the organisation of a un referendum that puts an end to this suffering".
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