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violations. The FMVJ registered a branch based in El-Ayoun, called FVJ–Sahara, some
of whose leading members were well-known pro-independence Sahrawis.
FVJ–Sahara publicly denounced present-day human rights violations that they
attributed to the Moroccan authorities, including when it briefed international
visitors. On February 11, 2002, for example, FVJ–Sahara briefed a visiting delegation
from the European parliament’s ad hoc committee on Western Sahara.
In April 2003, the prosecutor petitioned the El-Ayoun Court of First Instance to order
the legal dissolution of the FVJ-Sahara. The main evidence against FVJ-Sahara was a
report by the judicial police of El-Ayoun alleging that the section’s members used
human rights as a cover to pursue both violent and diplomatic “separatist” activities.
The police report lists, among other things, many meetings that the section had held
with visiting foreign diplomats, journalists, and NGOs. 190
The prosecutor’s petition said the FVJ-Sahara should be closed for the following
reasons:
• Its “failure to respect the organization’s statutes because it did not use the
full name of the mother organization, the Moroccan Forum for Truth and
Justice.” To the prosecutor, this was one indication among many of the
organization’s separatist agenda.
• Its pursuit of activities that “can disturb public order through encouraging
some youths who feel desperation owing to the social situation to commit
subversive and destructive crimes in various cities of the Sahara region.”
• Its encouragement “of holding demonstrations in public with youths bearing
sticks, clubs, and knives.”
• Its pursuit of activities that can harm the territorial integrity of the Kingdom,
such as by maintaining contacts with foreign parties in furtherance of that
objective,… plotting with foreign bodies and organizations that are hostile to
Morocco, in order to harm Morocco’s diplomatic standing; formulating
slogans that are hostile to territorial integrity; making flags of the phony
190 The El-Ayoun Criminal investigation department report, 222/SHK/S, is online in Arabic, and in French summary, at
www.arso.org/docu/fvjsdiss.htm (accessed December 1, 2008).
Human Rights in Western Sahara and Tindouf 100