59 Nordic organisations ask UN for human rights in Western Sahara
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A large group of Nordic organizations sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council yesterday asking for the UN operation in Western Sahara to monitor the human rights situation in the territory. Among the signatories are all Norwegian youth parties.
Published 11 April 2014


"We trust that the United Nations, as the guardian of the Declaration of Human Rights, will uphold and apply its principles not only in the many recent cases of open conflicts, crisis and armed violence, but also in less known, frozen, situations like the one in Western Sahara", a number of Nordic organizations wrote in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council yesterday.

The letter demanded the Security Council to include human rights monitoring in the territory. Download the letter here.

The letter has been mentioned by the news service Inner City Press,, which digs into UN affairs.

Yesterday, Reuters wrote that Ban Ki-Moon again is asking for a permanent human rights monitoring in the area,i, like he did last year in the Security Council. The attempt to make UN report the abuses is blocked every year by Morocco's near ally France.

In total 59 organisations joined the petition.

Among the Norwegian signatories of the letter, all of the Norwegian youth political parties are found. In addition to these, other signatories to the letter include the Liberal party, Green party, Changemaker, Association of Sahrawis in Norway, European Youth, Norwegian Council for Africa, Industry Energy Youth, Norwegian Peace Association, Norwegian People's Aid Solidarity Youth, Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund, Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara, Norwegian Union of Social Educator- and Social Worker Students, PRESS (Save the Children Youth), Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, and YGLobal.

The expansion of the UN mission's mandate is also supported by the Norweigan Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende.

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