AFAPREDESA

The Association for the Families of Saharawi Prisoners and the Disappeared

We did not ask for pardon nor amnesty, as we committed no crime

"We Did not ask for pardon or amnesty because we committed no crimes", the Saharawi political prisoner and human right activist, Ali Salem Tamek, declared on Saturday to he Spanish journalist, Luís de Vega, of the newspaper “ABC”, after the release of the 38 Saharawi political prisoners.

El Aaiun (occupied territories- Western Sahara), 24/04/2006 (SPS)

The Saharawi human rights activist affirmed, upon his getting out from the 'Cárcel Negra' (Black Jail) in El Aaiun, the capital of the Western Sahara, that "the Western Sahara must be free and we completely reject the plan of autonomy and support solutions such as the Baker Plan".

"Our opinion and consciousness remain the same", asserted Ali Salem Tamek, who was arrested last July the 18th 2005 upon his return from a visit to Europe coming from Las Palmas de Carnias. He was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in a trial qualified as illegal and doubtful by local and international human rights organisations.

Tamek, who is 29 years old, married an father to a daughter, is an imminent human rights defender, is living now in the occupied city of El Aaiun. He was arrested and imprisoned many times, undertook 17 hunger strikes in Moroccan prisons, and suffered many intimidations, deportations and tortures, it should be recalled.