De Matyas Benyik
Budapest, 3rd March 2013.
STATEMENT TO CONDEMN MOROCCO
FOR UNJUST SENTENCE AGAINST 24 SAHARAWI POLITICAL PRISONERS
The Central and Eastern European Alliance for the Solidarity with the
Saharawi People (CEE Alliance) strongly condemns Morocco's unjust
sentence of 24 Saharawi civilian activists who were tried before a
Moroccan Court-Martial. The trial lasted over 9 days.
On Saturday,
16 February 2013, the Moroccan Court-Martial, in the deepest hours of
the night, has issued severe sentences against the 24 Saharawi prisoners
of conscience imprisoned in Salé (Morocco) ever since the dismantling
of the Gdeim Izik protest camp near El Aaiun (Western Sahara) on 8th
November 2013 by the Moroccan forces.
As it was reported 8 were convicted to life imprisonment and 14 were sentenced ranging from 20 to 30 years and 2 for 2 years.
The Saharawi prisoners, human rights activists, are being arbitrarily
accused in particular of “undermining the internal and external security
of the State, forming a criminal group and attacking public officials
in the course of their regular duties”.
The prisoners were all
on remand, without charge for more than two years, and this is illegal
under the Moroccan Criminal Code. They staged four hunger strikes in
order to alert public opinion and to claim for improvements in their
conditions of detention and their unconditional release. The Saharawi
political prisoners contested the legitimacy of the military court; they
also expressed their attachment to the inalienable right of the
Saharawi people to self determination, whilst condemning the crimes
perpetrated by the Moroccan State against the Saharawi citizens.
The politically motivated and unjust sentences against the Sahrawi
human rights activists, including life imprisonment, were handed in a
trial that was fraught with legal irregularities as attested to by the
independent and international observers that managed to follow the
trial. A host of international human rights organisations and groups
have also expressed their deep concern about the proceedings of this
unjust trial, which Amnesty international has considered flawed from the
outset. In addition, Amnesty International underlined that “the trial
of civilians before a military court does not meet internationally
recognised standards for a fair trial. The 24 accused must be brought
before a civilian court with all the human rights guarantees that go
along with it, and in no event must anyone be sentenced to death”, as
stated by Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle
East and North Africa, on 1 February 2013.
As you may be
aware, the 24 human rights activists were arrested in the aftermath of
the dismantling of the Gdeim Izik Protest Camp on 8 November 2010, when
Moroccan troops and police attacked violently tens of thousands of
Sahrawi civilians who were staying at Gdeim Izik Camp, to the east of
the occupied city of El Aaiun. The main goal of the Sahrawi civilians
was to protest peacefully against the deteriorating socio-economic and
political conditions in which they have been living for over 35 years
under Morocco’s illegal occupation.
A litany of human rights
violations including arbitrary sentences, continuous detention, trial
postponements and the detainees' allegations of torture and
ill-treatment have been the cause of considerable international concern.
Thereby, CEE Alliance denounces that:
1) The kingdom of
Morocco does not have any jurisprudence over the aforementioned event in
Gdeim Izik insofar as it has not been internationally recognised as
having administrative power in the Territory which, according to the
advisory letter from the UN Office of Legal Affairs (2002), lies instead
with the former Spanish colonial authorities;
2) The trial of civilians before a military court did not meet international recognised standards for holding a fair trial;
3) The continuous imprisonment of civilians involved in the
aforementioned event do not respect international law since no
independent investigation into the events of Gdeim Izik were conducted
in the two years after they occurred;
4) The detainees'
allegations of torture and ill-treatment contravene legal standards of
Moroco, a signee of the Convention Against Torture in 1986, and
invalidates any evidence obtained from prisoners under these
circumstances;
5) The military trial is unconstitutional under
Moroccan national law as the article 127 of the Moroccan constitution
(2011) forbids Ad Hoc Courts, whose sentences cannot be appealed;
6) The unlawful sentence against one of the condemned Saharawi
prisoners who was reportedly arrested the day before the dismantling of
the camp happened and did not participate in the Gdeim Izik events;
Due to the aforementioned points, CEE Alliance condemns the outcome of
this unlawful trial and demands the immediate release of these political
prisoners and the restoration of their dignity.
Matyas Benyik
President of CEE Alliance
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