December, 19 2008, 03:18pm EDT
Morocco: Suppressing Rights in Western Sahara
Population of Polisario-Run Refugee Camps Remain Vulnerable
RABAT, Morocco
Morocco violates the rights to expression, association, and assembly in Western Sahara, Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today, revealing stark limits to the progress that Morocco has made in protecting human rights overall. Human rights conditions have also improved in the Sahrawi refugee camps managed by the Polisario Front in Algeria, although the Polisario marginalizes those who directly oppose its leadership.
Human Rights Watch called on both Morocco and Polisario to take specific steps to improve the human rights situation in the territories under their de facto control, and on the United Nations Security Council to ensure regular human rights monitoring in both Western Sahara and Tindouf.
"The repression has eased somewhat, and today dissidents are testing the red lines," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "But Moroccan authorities - to their credit - ask us to judge them not against their own past record, but against their international human rights engagements. By that standard, they have a long way to go."
The 216-page report, "Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps," focuses on the present-day situation rather than on past abuses. Human Rights Watch documents how Morocco uses a combination of repressive laws, police violence, and unfair trials to punish Sahrawis who advocate peacefully in favor of independence or full self-determination for the disputed Western Sahara.
"The Western Sahara is an international problem that has been on the back burner for decades," said Whitson. "But through this conflict, the world can also understand and address the broader human rights challenges that remain for Morocco."
In Western Sahara, Moroccan authorities consider all opposition to their rule of the disputed territory as illegal attacks on Morocco's "territorial integrity," and use this as a basis to ban or disperse peaceful demonstrations and to deny legal recognition to human rights organizations. The problem goes well beyond repressive laws, however: police beat peaceful pro-independence demonstrators and sometimes torture persons in their custody, Human Rights Watch said. Citizens file formal complaints about police abuse that the justice system routinely dismisses without conducting serious investigations, reinforcing a climate of impunity for the police.
While Sahrawi demonstrations sometimes involve acts of protester violence that Moroccan authorities have a responsibility to prevent and punish, this cannot justify blanket bans on peaceful assemblies. Moroccan courts have convicted Sahrawi human rights activists of inciting or participating in violence based on dubious evidence, in trials that were patently unfair.
In preparing this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed scores of people living in Western Sahara as well as present and former residents of the Tindouf refugee camps. Both Moroccan and Polisario authorities received the Human Rights Watch delegation, imposed no significant obstacles on its work, and provided extensive answers to questions from Human Rights Watch that are reflected in the report.
In the Tindouf refugee camps, the Polisario Front allows refugees to criticize its management of daily affairs, but effectively marginalizes those who directly oppose its leadership. Residents are able to leave the camps if they wish to, including to resettle in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. The fact that most take the main road to Mauritania rather than a clandestine route shows their confidence in being allowed to travel. Yet, those headed to Western Sahara tend to hide their plans, fearing both official obstacles and the disapproval of other camp residents if their final destination becomes known.
The population of the camps remains vulnerable to abuses due to the camps' isolated location, the lack of any regular independent human rights monitoring and reporting, and Algeria's claim that the Polisario, rather than Algeria itself, is responsible for protecting the human rights of the camps' residents.
"The refugees in Tindouf have, for more than 30 years, lived in exile from their homeland, governed by a liberation movement in an environment that is physically harsh and isolated," said Whitson. "Regardless of the current state of affairs, both the Polisario and the host country, Algeria, have responsibilities to ensure that the rights of these vulnerable refugees are protected."
Human Rights Watch said that the UN Security Council should ensure that the UN presence in the region includes regular human rights monitoring. Virtually all UN peacekeeping missions around the world include a human rights component and, with MINURSO forces operating in a peacekeeper capacity in Western Sahara, this region should be no exception. In this, France and the United States, as the permanent Security Council members with the strongest interests in this region, have a critical role to play.
Among its many recommendations, Human Rights Watch urges Morocco to:
- Revise or abolish laws 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;
- End impunity for police abuses by ensuring serious investigations into civilian complaints and, where warranted, charges or disciplinary measures against abusive agents;
- Allow independent human rights associations to follow the procedure for obtaining legal recognition; and
- Ensure that courts reach verdicts based on the impartial weighing of all relevant evidence. Judges and prosecutors should give effect to suspects' right under Moroccan law to demand medical examinations, and reject as evidence any statement that is established to have been made as a result of police torture.
Human Rights Watch urges the Polisario Front to:
- Take pro-active measures so that all camp residents know that they are free to leave the camps, including to settle in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara;
- Ensure that camp residents are free to challenge peacefully the leadership of the Polisario Front and to advocate options for Western Sahara other than independence; and
- Eliminate or restrict broadly worded articles of the Polisario penal code that, for example, criminalize the printing of publications or participating in demonstrations deemed "likely to disturb the public order."
Morocco has ruled Western Sahara de facto since its troops moved in following Spain's withdrawal from its former colony in 1976. Morocco officially refers to the region as its "southern provinces," but the United Nations does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty.
Morocco opposed as unworkable a UN-brokered plan for a referendum on the territory's future and has proposed autonomy for the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty. Morocco has made clear, however, that the plan envisages no rollback of laws criminalizing "attacks on territorial integrity." Thus, Moroccan-granted autonomy will not give Sahrawis their right to demand independence or a referendum to decide the region's future.
"Sahrawis differ on how to resolve the conflict," said Whitson. "But wherever they live, authorities must allow them peacefully to express and act on behalf of those views. Any proposed solution for the Western Sahara that does not guarantee these rights is no solution at all."
Human Rights Watch takes no position on the issue of independence for Western Sahara or on Morocco's proposal for regional autonomy.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular