Mr. Abdelaziz calls on Ban Ki-Moon to help release Saharawi prisoners of conscience

The Saharawi President, Mohamed Abdelaziz, called on the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, Saturday, to "urgently intervene" vis-à-vis Morocco so as to release all Saharawi prisoners of conscience who are serving heavy sentences of imprisonment in Moroccan jails because of their opinions in favour of the decolonisation of Western Sahara. The President of the Republic expressed, in a letter to Ban Ki-Moon, his "deep concern about the critical situation of the Saharawi prisoners of conscience in Moroccan prisons as well as about the situation of the human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, in the south of Morocco and in the Moroccan universities". IN this respect, he regretted the heavy sentences pronounced by the Moroccan colonial court against Saharawi activists: Yahya Mohamed Elhafed Iaaza, (15 years imprisonment), Mohamed Salmi, Elmojahi Mayara, Mahmoud Elberkawi, Lehsen Lefkir, Najem Bouba and Salama Charafi (4 years imprisonment) and Omar Lefkir (1 year imprisonment).