See Norwegian version of the resolution.
Resolution: Support Human Rights in occupied Western Sahara
The UN operation in Western Sahara is silent witness to serious Human Rights violations. However, the mission does not have the mandate to report on such violations, as other UN missions do. This fundamental flaw in the mandate of the UN operation in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara must immediately be corrected.
On 8 April 2013, the UN Secretary-General presented his annual report to the UN Security Council. He expressed concern over torture in Moroccan jails and life imprisonments against Saharawi activists, and urged for the surveillance of Human Rights in Western Sahara. The need for independent, impartial, comprehensive and sustained monitoring of the human rights [ ] is ever more pressing he stated.
The US, which always writes the drafts for the Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara, followed up on the request from Ban Ki-Moon. Both the US and the UK worked for an inclusion of Human Rights in the mandate of MINURSO, the UN operation. Also the Saharawi liberation movement Frente Polisario wishes such a change to take place. Only Morocco, and its close ally, France, object to it.
Morocco intends to keep silencing the Saharawi voices that demand their legitimate right to self-determination in Western Sahara. More than 100 UN resolutions call for this right to be respected. Following a question from Norway in the UN Human Rights Council last year, Morocco stated that it does not intend to follow international minimum standards for registering of civil society groups in Western Sahara.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, France is sitting on the key to the question of the UN involvement in Western Sahara. While France speaks loudly for Human Rights in other contexts, they chose to directly undermining Human Rights in occupied Western Sahara. Every year, France blocks the proposal of allowing the UN mission in Western Sahara to observe and report on the Human Rights violations in the territory.
The Nordic governments have been positive to the inclusion of monitoring of Human Rights in Western Sahara, in the way that the UN Secretary-General, the US, the UK and Frente Polisario demand.
End of April 2014, the MINURSO mandate is up for new debate.
The Nordic Youth Council urges the Nordic governments to take a joint Nordic initiative expressing a clear expectation to the UN Security Council that a mechanism of permanent monitoring and reporting of Human Rights must be introduced in the MINURSO mandate. Special expectations over this should be placed on the government of France.
UN body calls for the release of imprisoned Saharawi student
In a decision published yesterday, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concludes that the detention of the Saharawi student and human rights defender Al-Hussein Al-Bachir Ibrahim is arbitrary. The UN Working Group called on Morocco to immediately release him from the deplorable prison conditions.
Two Norwegians Are Now Being Deported from Occupied Western Sahara
Two more Norwegians, who travelled to occupied Western Sahara to learn about Morocco’s controversial energy projects in the territory, were detained by Moroccan police this afternoon and deported.
Norwegians deported from occupied Western Sahara - wanted to learn about renewable energy
Today, 25 Moroccan police officers showed up to expel two Norwegians from occupied Western Sahara. The two had traveled to learn what the Sahrawis think about Morocco's controversial renewable energy projects on occupied land.
UN committee highlights Moroccan impunity in occupied Western Sahara
Sahrawi civil society welcomes a new report from the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearance, and urges exhumations and identification of victims in the Morocco-occupied Western Sahara.