Euro-MPs call on Mogherini to exert pressure on Morocco to release Gdeim Izik’s Sahrawi prisoners

About twenty European parliamentarians called on Tuesday the head of the European diplomacy Federica Mogherini to exert pressure on Morocco to put an end to the “illegal detention” of the Sahrawi political prisoners of “Gdeim Izik” group and to “quash” all the accusations made against this group’s members, tried by a Moroccan military court.

“We, as members of the European Parliament (…), we are asking for your intervention to ensure that all the accusations made against Gdeim Izik group are lifted and their military trial quashed, putting an end to their illegal detention,” wrote, in a letter sent to Mogherini, 23 Euro-MPs belonging to the five largest political groups of the European Parliament.

Expressing their “solidarity” with the Sahrawi prisoners of Gdeim Izik group, the signatories of the letter call on the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to exert pressure on Morocco so that “the international observers are authorized to get to the prisons where the Sahrawi political prisoners are detained in order to ensure the respect of the international law by Morocco.”

Recalling that the Moroccan Court of Cassation announced, at the end of July, the quashing of the verdict of the 23 convicted prisoners of Gdeim Izik group and the referral of the case to a criminal court of common law of Rabat, the European parliamentarians underlined that this decision was taken following the international campaign led by human rights organizations in favour of a fair civil trial for these Sahrawi activists, sentenced to heavy penalties to have claimed the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.