Rabab Amidane wins Student's Peace Prize

Rabab Amidane, the sister of imprisoned Sahrawi activist El-Ouali Amidane and an advocate for the rights of Sahrawis in her own right, has won the Student's Peace Prize for her work on Western Sahara:

Amidane travels abroad to tell the rest of the world about the conditions of the Sahrawis in Western Sahara. When she visited Norway in 2007, Amidane met the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, and she asked the Norwegian state to support Western Sahara's demands for independence. By meeting political leaders and people with a lot of resources, Amidane could make the world recognize the conflict in Western Sahara. In cooperation with Norwegian youth's political parties and the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara, Amidane has been able to make the present conflict in Western Sahara relevant in Norway.

One of the members of the committee that awarded the prize used to be on the Nobel committee. I think this, and Aminatou Haidar's RFK Award, signal that the human rights community is moving towards awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to a Sahrawi.

Photo by Wikdmessenger

El Aiaun, I love you but you're bringing me down

ARSO news is back after its noted holiday, and the world is better for it. One of the entries got me thinking:

10.08.07, Testimony of human rights defender, Yahdih Ettarouzi, imprisoned in the Black Prison of El Ayoun for 10 months:
"Black Jail" of El Aai繳n/Western Sahara, "A grave for alive people",

There's been some talk lately about calling the Black Jail/Prison "a grave for alive people." I understand the sentiment, but that's crummy phrasing. Couldn't we say "a living tomb" or "a grave for the living"? I think those are catchier.

Norwegian youth staying with the Amidanes detained

Moroccan police in Western Sahara love to harass two groups: the Sahrawi Amidane family, and Norwegians. It was a happy day for them, then, when they discovered them both in the same place. Last week, two Norwegian youth politicians staying with the Amidanes were arrested and interrogated by Moroccan police.

Kamilla Eidsvik and Andrea Gustavsson, the arrested girls, are members of a socialist youth party in Norway (even though one of them is Swedish). They were on the street in El Aiaun when they saw Moroccan security forces raid a house. As you might've noticed at this point, Morocco isn't thrilled when outsiders visit Western Sahara to see if it's treating the Sahrawis as well as it claims. The girls were bundled into an armored car and held for two hours. Since they were going to leave Western Sahara anyway, they weren't expelled.

This isn't going to help the Amidane family, whose imprisoned son El-Ouali is already a cause celebre amongst Western Saharan activists. Their daughter Rabab (pictured with the Scandinavian women) has been beaten by Moroccan police and recently visited Norway to garner support for Western Sahara.

The event gives lie to Morocco's claim that it's treating Sahrawis well. Why would Morocco arrest young, foreign women just for being near a raid unless that raid was unlawful? I'd like to see Morocco's henchmen claim the young women presented a security risk.