A message from the Chair of WSC: As we went to press a rare thing happened for the Saharawi some good news! The Court of Justice of the European Union declared that it was unlawful for European Union trade agreements to operate in the Moroccan held part of Western Sahara. WSC UK has also won the right to take a case about UK trade in goods from Western Sahara to the same court next year we are now confident of victory.
If you donated to our appeal I would like to thank you (and if you didn‟t there is still time!). Another bit of good news in 2015 was the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Jeremy has been a staunch defender of the Saharawi right to self-determination since the early 1980s and was Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Western Sahara. He has often been a guest of the POLISARIO Front in the camps and was part of the first MPs delegation to the Occupied Territories last year. We plan to take this opportunity to make the Labour Party's position on the Western Sahara unequivocally clear.
Last autumn we had to mark the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Western Sahara by picketing the Moroccan embassy. Our partners Sandblast ran a whole programme of events and I hope to see you at their benefit concert on February 6th in London. Sadly there were torrential rains in the refugee camps and violent repression of demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. Unfortunately Life (as an independent nation) did not begin at 40. So we are re-girding our loins to push the members of the United Nations Security Council to do the right thing this spring. And we need your help you will find some leaflets enclosed. They were produced by War on Want and show the breadth of support for the Saharawi cause in the trades union movement. Please use them to sign up your friends and colleagues the Saharawi need all the support they can get to make the international community fulfil its legal duty.
WESTERN SAHARA CAMPAIGN UK
The Western Sahara Campaign works in solidarity with the Saharawi people to generate political support in order to advance their right to self-determination and to promote their human rights.
Our role is to lobby the UK Government and the EU. You can help us to ensure the UK does not ignore the voice of the Saharawi people.
Follow the news about EU's illegal fisheries in Western Sahara