"The European Parliament's resolution is hasty and biased. Hasty because we had agreed with the Conference of Presidents that the resolution will be adopted next December, and biased because it does not mention the rights of all Sahrawis, including those on the Algerian territory in the camps of the Polisario Front," Taib Fassi Fihri said in an interview published on Saturday by the Spanish daily El Pais.

    Fassi Fihri announced that he will be in the European Parliament in December to "prove the biased, unfair and unbalanced nature of the resolution, demonstrate the political and legal reality and affirm that there were no deaths during the dismantling of the protest camp and that the Moroccan security forces were not armed," as alleged by sources from Algeria, the polisario and Spain who went as far as to say that there was a "genocide" and an "ethnic cleansing" in Laayoune.

    "There were no deaths during the dismantling of the protest camp. The Moroccan security forces did not fire a single gunshot," he stressed.

    "To my knowledge, there was no torture of innocents, just as there were no missing persons. But whether the perpetrators of violence would have been tortured or not it is up to justice to rule. Unless you do not trust justice," he added.

    Asked on an alleged participation of “Moroccan civilians in retaliation against Sahrawis” as claimed by the propaganda of the polisario and Algeria and their supporters in Spain, the minister said that "the police made enormous efforts to prevent the civilian population from reacting against troublemakers."

    "Many lies were circulated to the Spanish public opinion which is misguided by some NGOs for historical and strategic reasons", he said, noting that that "the Spanish public opinion was misled, for weeks, with respect to the dismantling operation. Now that everyone knows it was abused, attention was diverted to another subject, which also does not exist, that of violence after the dismantling operation."

    He stressed that the Spanish Popular Party is using the Sahara issue for electoral purposes.

    On the extension of the MINURSO mission to include human rights, Fassi Fihri said Morocco totally opposes this extension.

    In this connection, he pointed out that there are across the world six UN missions which have no competence in terms of human rights, and “we see no reason why Morocco should accept that MINURSO extend its competences. Morocco has nothing to hide, as evidenced by the fact that human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are present on the ground.”

Source: MAP
News and events concerning Western Sahara issue/ Corcas