Unemployed Saharawis call for an end to discrimination in fisheries industry.
On 13 January, at 11am local time, Saharawi fishermen in Dakhla staged a peaceful protest outside of the Delegation for Fisheries in Dakhla, occupied Western Sahara. It was the second protest this month, taking place only a few days after the previous demo.
The fishermen repeated that they consider themselves on the losing end of the discriminatory employment practices of the Moroccan government's recruitment agency in their occupied hometown. They also demanded an end be put to the depletion of Western Saharan fish stocks by “lobbying of the Moroccan government", as one protester put it.
The fishermen claim they were hindered by the Moroccan police on their way to the protest site. They say the Moroccan security troops are currently intensifying their presence in certain neighbourhoods of the city, against the backdrop of celebrations commemorating the foundation of the Frente Polisario - the internationally recognised representative of the Saharawi people.
In a legal note, the EU Council admits that the highest EU court has definitively annulled the EU-Morocco Trade and Fisheries Agreements as they applied to Western Sahara, marking a clear victory for the Saharawi people’s struggle for self-determination.
The French Court's confirmation comes a week after representatives of the Spanish agricultural sector called on the EU to end tomato imports from Western Sahara.
Three months have passed since the EU Court of Justice banned EU-Morocco trade deals in occupied Western Sahara. The EU Commission is still in the dark on how to take it from here.
The EU commission has informed the aviation industry that Western Sahara is not part of the EU's aviation deal with Morocco.