The persecutions in the camps of Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf do not leave anyone indifferent. A sit-in is planned this Friday 28 October in front of the UNHCR delegation’s headquarters in Rabat, in solidarity with the Sahrawi artists who are submitted to a clear oppression for their opinions which do not keep with the Polisario separatists’ thesis. The Moroccan organization for citizenship and territorial integrity defense which has taken this initiative, has called its militants as well as the bodies representing artists and organizations of civil society and human rights defense, to participate in large numbers to this demonstration.
During the sit-in organized in coordination with the international association for the defense of Sahrawi artists, the protesters should hand over to the HCR executives, a petition requesting the end of the blockade imposed by the Polisario leadership and its armed militia, to intellectual and artistic creation in Tindouf camps.
This petition will be signed by the persons involved in the world of art and policy as well as the associative tissue who declare themselves supporting the Sahrawi artist Najem Allal Eddaf. The latter observes an open sit-in in front of the HCR headquarters in Rabouni camp to denounce the persecution and intimidations he is suffering from, since his last album launched in last August, and which takes the form of a plain indictment of inhuman practices of which are victims Tindouf camps’ inhabitants. A copy of the petition would be addressed directly by the organizers of the sit-in in Rabat, to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, to the executive Director of the humanitarian organization “Human Rights Watch and the HCR to push them to put pressure on the Polisario so that it stops its repressive practices in Tindouf camps, referring particularly to the elite of artists and intellectuals opposing separatism. What makes these repressive practices of the Polisario security forces against the civil populations, more serious, as stated by the Sahrawis in Tindouf, is the total black-out imposed in the camps, where journalists and foreign humanitarians’ access is strictly directed. One only needs to surf in the net to get to the bottom of it.