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To the UN Security Council
Recommendations
Expand the mandate of MINURSO (UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara)
to include human rights monitoring and reporting in both Western Sahara and in the
Polisario-administered camps in Algeria; or establish another mechanism by which
the UN provides regular, on-the-ground human rights monitoring and reporting there.
Recommendations to the Government of Morocco
Permit on-the-ground monitoring of human rights conditions in Western Sahara by
an appropriate UN mechanism such as MINURSO, should the UN expand its mandate.
Revise or abolish articles of the Press Code, the Law on Associations, and other
legislation that criminalize speech and political or associative activities deemed
affronts to Morocco’s “territorial integrity” and that are used to suppress nonviolent
advocacy in favor of Sahrawi political rights.
Implement and oversee thorough and independent investigations into allegations by
civilians of human rights abuse by police; ensure that the search for the truth
involves soliciting additional information from the persons who filed the complaints
and, when potentially useful, their families; make public the results of such
investigations as well as the administrative or disciplinary measures, if any, that are
taken in response.
Where the evidence warrants, bring charges against public agents implicated in acts
of torture, including those who give instructions to torture or those in position of
authority who should have known about the torture and failed to take action to
prevent it or punish those responsible.
Investigate, specifically, the conduct of three officers whom complainants have
repeatedly cited as personally involved in abusing Sahrawis in El-Ayoun during the
period 2005-2007: Ichi abou el-Hassan, Moustapha Kamouri, and Aziz Annouche;
Human Rights in Western Sahara and Tindouf 12