Campaigners deliver letter to Gordon Brown from Aminatou Haidar
On International Human Rights Day, campaigners delivered a hand-signed letter to Gordon Brown from Aminatou Haidar in which she asks for the urgent support of the Labour government and the British people and says “my spirit remains strong but I feel my physical strength is fading fast”. Indeed, she is now unable to stand and the doctor who examined her this week listed her symptoms as hypotension, nausea, anaemia, muscular-skeletal atrophy and gastric haemorrhaging.
On the day that Barack Obama picked up his Nobel Peace Prize, a previous nominee for the award, Aminatou Haidar, was on the on the 25th day of a hunger-strike at Lanzarote airport.
In a letter to Gordon Brown she asks that Britain bring pressure to bear on Morocco not just to allow her to return home in accordance with her rights under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but also to get them to accept a conflict solution that conforms with international law, namely:
* a referendum on self determination for Western Sahara; * the cessation of the arrest and torture of human rights defenders; * the freeing of all prisoners of conscience most notably the seven prominent human rights activists awaiting sentence from a military tribunal in Rabat which could include the death penalty.
Haidar writes: “I would like to ask you and your government and the people of Britain for your urgent support. Support not just for me but for all the Saharawi people who, for the past 34 years have been forced to live either under an unlawful and brutal occupation in Western Sahara or in desolate refugee camps in the Algerian desert.”
A public letter of support was also delivered to Mr Brown, in which signatories - including MP’s from all three main political parties, MEP’s, ambassadors, trade union leaders, lawyers such as Baroness Kennedy QC and celebrities such as Brian Eno, Terry Jones, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Juliet Stevenson – called on the government to act. The letter states that the hunger strike “is not about the individual right of one person to return to her home but about the collective right denied to the Saharawi people to live freely in their native land” and they pledge to do all they can to support her and the people of Western Sahara.”
Stefan Simanowitz, Chair of the Free Western Sahara Network who carried the letter from Lanzarote, said today: “Aminatou Haidar remains resolute but she is being pushed to the brink of death and her condition is now critical. Her doctor talks about hours or days rather than weeks.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP, Vice Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, said today: “It is fitting that today, on International Human Rights Day, we are here outside No.10 Downing Street, to deliver this letter from Aminatou Haidar, an iconic campaigner for the rights and justice of her people. Throughout the world people have been shocked at her treatment at the hands of the Moroccan authorities and even the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has this week emphasised her right to return home. There has already been tremendous support for Ms Haidar among the British public and in Parliament with a delegation going to Lanzarote and a cross-party motion tabled in the House of Commons. We call on Britain to play a meaningful part both in bringing justice for the people of Western Sahara and in ensuring Ms Haidar’s immediate return to her home.”
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.
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