[mgj-discuss] Urgent: Please Join Protest to Save Aminatou Haidar-Thursday, Dec 17

[nonviolence at igc.org]

We, as US citizens, have a special responsibility to stand up because 
the US government for decades has provided enormous military, political 
and economic support the Moroccan government despite its illegal 
invasion and occupation of Western Sahara.
For those of you who are really fired up about the Israeli occupation of 
Palestine, this is a similar case. The US government pays lips service 
to UN resolution and violations  of international law, and openly 
supports the occupiers.
Please turn out at noon near Dupont Circle tomorrow and support this 
heroic Sahrawi woman who is physically very weak.
Thanks,
Michael Beer

_MEDIA ADVISORY_
 
*Protest for Sahrawi Human Rights Defender Aminatou Haidar* 
*12:00 noon, Thursday, December 17, 2009*
Moroccan Embassy, *1601 21st Street, N.W., Washington DC 20009*
 
*Human Rights Groups to Stage Protest: Call for King Mohamed VI to Allow 
Aminatou Haidar to Return Home *
 
*(Washington, D.C.)* Human rights groups including the Human Rights 
Action Center and the U.S.-Western Sahara Foundation are staging a 
protest at the Moroccan Embassy to call for the King of Morocco to allow 
Aminatou Haidar to return home.  Haidar has been on a hunger strike 
since November 16, when Moroccan authorities took her passport as she 
was returning to her homeland of Western Sahara after visiting the 
United States to receive the Civil Courage Prize given for “steadfast 
resistance to evil at great personal risk.” 
 
Haidar is known as the "Sahrawi Gandhi" for her peaceful work calling 
for self-determination for Western Sahara, the only country in Africa 
that was not decolonized because Morocco invaded and has controlled the 
one-time colony of Spain since 1975.  The Moroccan authorities who 
occupy her homeland, confiscated her passport and forced her to go to 
Lanzorate Airport,  Spain, when she wrote “Western Sahara" as her home 
rather than “Morocco” on her arrival form. She has vowed to maintain her 
hunger strike until she is allowed to “return to her homeland, where my 
children live or I die.”
 
Haidar won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last year and the 
organization has sent representatives to visit her in Lanzorate Airport. 
 
Jack Healey, former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, and 
founder of the Human Rights Action Center says:  "The Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights guarantees everyone the right to a 
homeland.  Morocco needs to re-assess its policy and allow Aminatou 
Haidar to return home unconditionally.  A restitution package for 
personal harm inflicted upon her by this mistaken policy is essential to 
healing wounds and showing remorse."
 
Chairman of the US-Western Sahara Foundation, Suzanne Scholte, who 
nominated Haidar for the two awards, said, "Aminatou Haidar is the 
symbol of the Sahrawi cause, which stands for self-determination, the 
rule of law, and nonviolence.  The continued cruel treatment by the 
Moroccan authorities of Haidar and other Sahrawis simply illustrates 
vividly why African countries recognize the Sahrawi Republic over 
Morocco's occupation."
 
Immediately following the demonstration at the Moroccan Embassy, 
participants will go to the Spanish Embassy to make an appeal to the 
Spanish Prime Minister because the Spanish government was complicit with 
Morocco in forcing her to go to the Canary Islands.
 
The violence against the Sahrawis in occupied Western Sahara has been 
documented and reported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, 
Freedom House, the World Organization Against Torture, Reporters without 
Borders, and the U.S. State Department.  In fact, Morocco’s brutal 
occupation of Western Sahara has repeatedly led Freedom House to list 
Moroccan Occupied Western Sahara as one of the world’s worst regimes.  
Even the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 
has acknowledged Morocco’s human rights violations against the Sahrawi 
people, concluding that it is a direct result of Morocco's denial of the 
basic right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.
 
For further information, contact Henry Song at 202-596-6547 or Suzanne 
Scholte at 703-534-4313.
 
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-- 
Warmly,
Michael Beer
Director
Nonviolence International
+1 202 244 0951
www.nonviolenceinternational.net

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