A Saharawi NGO denounces the interdiction of visits of Saharawi families to their detaineed sons
12/09/2007

The Collective of the Saharawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA) denounced on Wednesday the interdiction of visits to the families of the Saharawi political detainees by the Moroccan colonial authorities and penitentiary authorities in the notorious Carcel Negra (Black Jail).

In a press release of which SPS received a copy, CODESA also expressed solidarity with the Saharawi political detainees in the Carcel Negra (in the occupied capital of Western Sahara, El Aaiun), mainly Boutabaa Mohamed, El Boussati Abdallahi and Sah Nafii, who are actually undertaking an unlimited hunger strike since last Monday to protest against the ill-treatment they are facing and their deprivation from the right to receive visits from their families.

The 3 political prisoners are detained because of their participation to peaceful demonstrations advocating their people’s right to self-determination and independence, and they are imprisoned with criminals in bad conditions, CODESA added.

The Saharawi NGO launched an appeal to the Moroccan colonial authorities asking for an urgent response to the prisoners’ demands and to the ending of the acts of intimidations against them. It also condemned the inhumane treatments the Saharawi political prisoners are subjected to during the visits of Moroccan penitentiary agents to their cells in the Carcel Negra.

It further asked for the immediate release of all the Saharawi political prisoners still under Moroccan custody.

On another hand, three other Saharawi political prisoners in the Carcel Negra were deprived from their parents visits. The concerned are: Ahmed Bourkouh, Mouloud Bourkouh and Mohamed Lehbib El Ghasmi, while Bechri ben Taleb is still suffering from different diseases under a complete ignorance from the penitentiary authorities, the same source deplored.

In the occupied city of Dakhla, a Moroccan private school abusively dismissed the child Echraf Oulad Cheikh, (8 year old son of a Saharawi human rights activist), because he chants slogans in favour of the POLISARIO Front and asks for his people’s right to self-determination.

The father of the kid denounced this "criminal act" of discrimination, calling the international organisations and persons concerned about justice to intervene urgently to guarantee the protection of the Saharawi children as well as adult civilians targeted by the Moroccan colonial repressive authorities.
(SPS)