Working With Javier Bardem for Justice in Western Sahara

In just two months, the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is up for renewal. Javier Bardem and I have teamed up to raise awareness for the need to include a human rights mandate in MINURSO.

Please watch the video below, see Javier's incredible documentary Sons of the Clouds, and visit www.rfkcenter.org to sign our petition to the UN.

In August of last year, I led an international delegation to evaluate the human rights situation of the Sahrawi people in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and in the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria. We witnessed firsthand the overwhelming presence of security forces and violations of basic human and civil rights that Sahrawi citizens live with every day. Last week, these violations made news again as more than twenty Sahrawi civilians who have been in detention for two years since the dismantlement of the Gdeim Izik protest camp appeared before the military court in Rabat, Morocco. Their trial was postponed for the fourth time to February 8, 2013.