Observers denounce harassment by Moroccan police of Sahrawi human rights activists :

Laayoune, June 10, 2010: International observers have condemned Tuesday the " persecution and harassment" by a large number of Moroccan police officers, most of them in plainclothes, of nine Sahrawi human rights activists during their reception on their return to the occupied city of Laayoune from a family visit to the Saharawi refugee camps.

"The observers are accommodated in houses isolated from the Sahrawi population and surrounded by Moroccan police, to disrupt the Sahrawi citizens who seek to reach those houses," said member of the observers, Alberto Suárez (Spain), who had accompanied the Sahrawi activists from Casablanca airport to Laayoune, the occupied Saharawi capital.

"The police of occupation tried hardly to force foreign observers from Spain, France and Great Britain to abandon the houses where they were accommodated and move to a hotel."

"All members of the delegation of international observers refused to go voluntarily to the police, which summoned them for this purpose, or leave the houses," he added.

Source: (SPS)