02/27/2024
Western Sahara Independence Day (February 27)
The last colony in the world – continuously occupied for 140 years
On the occasion of Western Sahara Independence Day (February 27), the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) once again demanded that the Sahrawi people should finally be granted a referendum on the independence of Western Sahara – which is decades overdue. “February 27 was supposed to be a day of rejoicing for the Sahrawi people: It was on this day in 1975 that the Spanish colonial troops withdrew – and the Sahrawis should finally be able to live self-determined lives,” stated Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, in Göttingen today. “However, the Kingdom of Morocco destroyed this dream immediately. Western Sahara, the last colony in the world, has now been continuously occupied since 1884.
The Kingdom of Morocco is still trying to normalize the illegal occupation. In January, Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva was elected chairman of the UN Human Rights Council – although the kingdom refuses to follow the council’s recommendations. “Following the last state review process, Morocco has consistently opposed almost all of the Human Rights Council’s binding recommendations regarding Western Sahara,” Schedler criticized. “Instead of unequivocally demanding a referendum – which the Sahrawis are entitled to, see UN Resolution 1514, the principle of self-determination – the Human Rights Council rewarded the occupiers with the chairmanship of the body, thus setting a fox to keep the geese.”
Another ongoing point of criticism has been the protection of human rights advocates in Morocco and Western Sahara. For example, 18 participants of the so-called “Gdeim Izik” protest camp have been in detention in Morocco since 2010, after security forces had raided the camp. In October 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had called for their release. The UN experts also called for a medical examination of the injuries suffered by those arbitrarily detained and for compensation. So far, Morocco, has not implemented any of these demands.
