Polisario Front asks UN release of seven prisoners

O polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali today asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to intervene urgently in the situation of the Sahrawi prisoners detained in Morocco.

In the same letter, the Polisario Front, which fights for the determination of the territories occupied by Morocco, called for the immediate release of seven prisoners, mostly students besides the president of the Sarawi Prisoners' Association.

Ghali stressed, in the same document addressed to António Guterres, that it is the duty of the United Nations to protect the Sahrawis from “repressive practices and retaliation of the occupying state (Morocco)” in the Western Sahara.

For the Polisario Front, the territory that was Spanish colony, it is the direct responsibility of the UN, since it remains the last pending issue of decolonization on the African continent.

Thus, Ghali expressed deep “concern and alarm” regarding the situation of the Sahrawi prisoners in Morocco who began a hunger strike on 23 September to protest against the conditions of imprisonment.

The leader of the Polisario Front also denounced the “brutal repression” against the protest held on October 12 in the capital of Morocco, Rabat — in which family members and sympathizers participated.

The Sahrawi leader stressed that prisoners should have the “conditions and guarantees laid down in international conventions, including access for prisoners to medical care and communication, as well as the transfer to places more “near the occupied Western Sahara residences”.

Last Tuesday, the Polisario Front questioned the impartiality of the UN envoy to the Western Sahara, Staffan De Mistura, who accused of “seriously committing the mandate” by supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan as a basis for future talks.

Polisario referred to statements made by De Mistura during private consultations of the Security Council on the United Nations Referendum Mission in Western Sahara (MINURSO), held on October 8.

According to the Moroccan newspaper Le360, De Mistura explicitly pointed out, for the first time, Polisario's refusal to seriously consider the Moroccan plan of autonomy as a significant obstacle to the progress of the political process, after the rounds of talks held this year in Madrid and Washington.

The Security Council, in turn, is preparing to review the renewal of the MINURSO mandate, which ends on 31 October.

Resolution 2797 supports the negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, based on the proposal for Moroccan autonomy, with the aim of achieving a definitive and acceptable political solution.

Morocco occupied the Western Sahara in November 1975.