Nacho Martin's blog
The Saharawi non-violent activist Aminetou Haidar, confined in the Lanzarote airport in Spain on hunger strike
Nacho Martín, Spain
Photos: Man Chagaf
The Saharawi non-violent activist Aminatou Haidar, who is also known as the Saharawi people’s Gandhi and recognized with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2008, remains since last Sunday on a hunger strike confined to the Lanzarote airport (Spain) after that Morocco expulsed her by force from the Western Sahara Occupied Territories last Saturday. The facts have been reported by human rights organizations sources, the Spanish police, the NGO Communicators for Peace and the Saharawi Journalist and Writers Union (UPES).
Despite of the fact that doctors are afraid for her health, since she suffers a stomach ulcer, Haidar assures that she is not going to abandon her demonstration until the Spanish Government allows her to take a flight to return to his home in El Aaiun, Saharaui Territories’ capital invaded by Morocco since 1975 violating the United Nations resolutions and the international law.
Haidar states that she feels kidnapped in the Lanzarote Airport and denounce a connivance between the Spanish Government and Morocco to expulse her from Western Sahara when she was returning from the US. Moroccan authorities stripped her passport and all her documentation. Subsequently, Spain accepted her entrance to the country without any document.
Haidar told the captain of the aircraft that she was forced to take the flight and she did not want to go to Spain, but to Western Sahara, one of the last African colonies according United Nations resolutions. Currently, the Spanish Government forbids her to take any flight to Western Sahara or to other airport where she could get access to other flight to come back home.
Support North African students who want to talk peace
The British institution Talk Together and the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union (UPES) announced yesterday that the Moroccan government prevented 14 Saharawi and Moroccan students (seven of each) from leaving Morocco to attend an international meeting called Talk Together in Oxford. This event in England focuses on peaceful conflict resolution and intercultural dialogue between youth from the United Kingdom, Norway, the Philippine,s and the refugee camps in Tindouf. The project has won support from British MPs, the European Commission, and the British Council.
