Saharawi-Students.org

Moroccan authorities didn’t allow six Saharawi youth to take a flight to London, where they were expected to participate to a youth encounter and dialogue with their Moroccan counterparts.

The six Saharawi youngsters, three girls and three boys, were stopped by police in the very moment when they reached the airport. The police intimidated them, but they refused to leave before the authorities give them a reason why they are banned from the right to travel.

The youngsters, it should be stressed are invited by a British based organization, Talk Together, which is organizing an encounter on Western Sahara conflict was planning to bring together 10 students from Morocco, 10 from the refugee camps and 10 from the occupied city of El Aaiun (the capital of Western Sahara). A further 10 students from Britain, Norway and other neutral countries, will also take part.

This encounter was supposed to start today. The Saharawi students from the refugee camps were able to travel freely to participate, while their brothers from the occupied zones and from Morocco couldn’t because of the Moroccan regime opposition to any kind of open dialogue.

Contacted by UPES, the six Saharawi students said they will start a hunger strike in the airport, and refuse to leave it until the Moroccan authorities allow them to fly to their destination, or give them a legal reason of this restriction to their right to movement and expression.

Talk Together takes young people from either side of an ongoing conflict and challenges them to generate new ways forward. The project confronts prejudice, fosters understanding, finds new possible solutions, stimulates wider public debate and gives the participants the educational experience of a lifetime.

The six Saharawi youth are now sealed by police in the airport, and may well be ill-treated and arrested if the organization that invited them doesn’t intervene to put pressures on the Moroccan authorities to prevent any possible abuse.

Source: United Saharawi Journalists and Writers www.upes.org