With the aim of media cover-up and concealing the facts about human rights violations and the plundering of the Sahrawi people’s resource
During the current year, the Moroccan occupation authorities expelled 27 foreign observers from the occupied Sahrawi territories. According to a joint statement by the Association for the Protection of Sahrawi Prisoners in Moroccan Prisons and the French Association for Friendship and Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, these included parliamentarians and human rights activists from Spain, the United States, and Portugal.
According to the reported figures, the total number of international observers, parliamentarians, human rights defenders, and foreign journalists expelled by the Moroccan occupation from Western Sahara since 2014 until August 24 of this year reached 329 foreign observers from 21 countries. The most recent among them were two human rights activists from the international organization “Nonviolence.” This was part of the strict blockade imposed on the occupied Sahrawi region and aimed at obscuring the human rights violations committed by Moroccan authorities, according to the statement.
Norway topped the list of countries whose nationals were expelled from the occupied territory, with 133 individuals, followed by Spain (105), Sweden (9), Italy (6), the United States (6), France (6), Poland (5), and the United Kingdom (4).
According to the same source, over the past years, the Kingdom of Morocco has expelled or barred seven international non-governmental human rights organizations from entering the occupied Sahrawi territories, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Nonviolence, Novact, and the Carter Center, in order to conceal the severe human rights violations and systematic plundering of Sahrawi resources. The source also pointed out that, for the ninth consecutive year, the Moroccan occupation prevents the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from accessing the occupied Western Sahara. Furthermore, the lack of a UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) mandate to monitor human rights in the occupied cities has contributed to Morocco’s continued crimes against unarmed Sahrawi civilians.
