Saharawi human rights activist Aamar Salem in a speaking tour in Canaries Islands
15/07/2007

The Saharawi human rights activist, El Mami Aamar Salem, President of the Committee Against Torture in Dakhla, started a speaking tour to the Canaries Island this week to raise awareness about the serious human rights situation in the occupied zoner of Western Sahara.

The Saharawi activist starts his visit from Tenerife, where he animated some medias conferences and gave a couple interviews to the Spanish local and national newspapers, especially the Spanish national newspaper ABC, Spanish press Agencies, EFE, and Europa Press in addition to Tenerife based radio, San Bourondon.


Mr. Aamar Salem stressed in his presentations on the personal and hard experience he lived under the Moroccan colonial authorities.

The Saharawi activist was arrested by Moroccan army on February, 26, 2006 in the southern borders of Western Sahara, while he was heading to Mauritania to get medical care he could not get in his own country because of police persecution.

Moroccan soldiers confiscated all his personal documents, ID, passport and money, bashed him and forced him to cross the military wall. He could not walk because the soldiers damaged especially his knees.

He spent some 5 days in the middle of the desert between the borders of the occupied Western Sahara and Mauritania. When a passing car picked him up, and took him to the Mauritanian authorities in the borders they refused to let him in because he did not have any papers or documents.

He finally got in Mauritania once his story reached the Saharawi solidarity groups and the Saharawi government, who contacted the Mauritanian authorities to ask them to let him in.

Mr. Aamar Salem says that he is willing to stay in Mauritania and continue the struggle against the Moroccan occupation, and is campaigning from there to help his comrades inside the Western Sahara unveil the truth about the Moroccan atrocities and crimes against the Saharawi citizens.

The Saharawi activist participated on Saturday to a demonstration organised by the Canaries Islands Committee for a Referendum on Self-determination in Western Sahara.

He called on the Spanish civil society and political parties to support the Saharawi citizens in the occupied zone of Western Sahara to get their freedom back.