WSC UK Briefing: Human Rights & 50 Years of Occupation

luetchfordkarl1
Dec 20, 2025
6 min read

Background

This briefing aims to update supporters on the human rights situation in Western Sahara as we mark the 50th anniversary of Morocco’s illegal occupation. The contents outlined below draw on reports from CODESA (The Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders in Western Sahara), Human Rights Watch, Adala UK, and the United Nations.

After 50 years of Morocco’s military occupation of Western Sahara, it is clear that the Moroccan regime continues to blatantly violate international law, and openly defy the International Court of Justice¹, the United Nations², the European Court of Justice³, and the African Court on Human and People’s Rights⁴—all of whom recognise and reaffirm that the Saharawi people have the inalienable right to self-determination.

Given increasing support amongst UN Security Council member states for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan (MAP)—a proposal in which Western Sahara would be granted regional autonomy, but would ultimately be subject to Moroccan sovereignty⁵—this represents an alarming shift for several reasons.

Not only does support for the MAP risk undermining both UN-led efforts to reach a just, lasting, and mutually-acceptable political solution and the principle of self-determination, but it also proposes that Morocco gains sovereignty over the very territory that it has been observed to commit grave and systematic human rights violations within.

The following human rights violations detailed below also raise questions of complicity for the UK government’s policy shift on June 1, 2025, as it endorsed the MAP as “the most credible, viable and pragmatic basis for a lasting resolution to the dispute⁶”.

1. Crimes Targeting Civilians

CODESA’s (2024) annual report on the Human Rights situation in Western Sahara outlines crimes targeting civilians perpetrated by Morocco, not only within the occupied territory, but also those committed east of the defensive berm⁷, in the liberated Western Sahara. Sources report serious injuries to and deaths of civilians, targeted by Moroccan drone strikes, detained in local prisons and psychiatric hospitals, and faced with live ammunition fired by the Moroccan occupying Auxiliary Forces⁸.

2. Targeting Human Rights Defenders, Bloggers, Journalists, and Saharawi Activists

In his 2025 report on the ‘Situation concerning Western Sahara⁹’, the UN Secretary-General acknowledges that Saharawis in the occupied territory face an ever-shrinking civic space, and punitive restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

Moroccan occupying authorities continue to systematically target human rights defenders, activists, journalists, former political prisoners, and civilians working to document and report violations. Through a campaign of violence, harassment, arbitrary searches and detention, confiscations, denial of free movement, alongside privacy invasion through surveillance, phone tapping and defamation, Moroccan authorities continue to repress any attempts of Saharawi advocacy in the occupied territory¹⁰.

3. Arrests, Political Trials, Arbitrary Detention, and violations under detention

Saharawi activists are faced with a targeted campaign of arrests for their advocacy around the application of international law and respect for rights in Western Sahara. CODESA identifies that 30 Saharawi political prisoners face between 10 years and lifetime sentences, produced through unjust and illegitimate arrest and trial procedures¹¹.

Imprisoned Saharawi activists also face severe human rights violations perpetrated by the Moroccan General Delegation for Prison Administration. Reports and complaints from families of political prisoners report denial of medical treatment, medical neglect, confiscations, discriminatory treatment and racial discrimination. This drove 12 Saharawi political prisoners to begin hunger strikes in 2024¹².

4. Targeting of Saharawi Civilians through Impoverishment, Forced Displacement, Suppression of Freedom of Expression

Saharawi activists are targeted by Moroccan Occupation Authorities for demanding basic economic and social rights. Attempts to realise the benefit of Western Sahara’s natural resources are denied, driving high unemployment that motivates irregular migration. Protests demanding basic rights to employment and sovereignty over resources in late 2024 were met with violent suppression.

Economic oppression is also coupled with Moroccan confiscation of Saharawi assets and land, including reported clearances to make way for transfer to international investment companies¹³.

5. Continued Plunder of Natural Resources, and denial of sovereignty over resources

Western Sahara Resource Watch, an NGO monitoring foreign partnerships with Morocco in the occupied territory, has produced several reports detailing the expropriation of natural resources by the Moroccan Occupation Authorities.

Through partnerships on agricultural exports, fisheries, phosphate mining and exports, renewable energy projects, and green hydrogen, Morocco continues to operate in the occupied territory, despite not having sovereignty nor any legal right. Morocco continues this denial of the Saharawi’s right to their resources, without obtaining the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the Saharawi people.¹⁴

Implications

With Morocco denying The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) access to the territory since 2015, despite repeated requests¹⁵, the UN remains limited in its ability to monitor and observe the human rights situation in occupied territory.

The UK needs to go further

This is a crucial moment to demand the UK government supports the Saharawi people and increases its efforts to ensure a just and lasting resolution rooted in the Saharawi right to self determination.

The UK has stated its commitment to upholding international law. The UK has stressed that any solution must be mutually agreed, and that they will continue to support the UN and uphold the principle of self-determination.

Morocco continues with its policy of abusing Saharawi who support self-determination despite its commitment on human rights in the communiqué and continues to be one of the worst violators of human rights in the world.

Take Action!

You can take action to help the Saharawi people and push for vital change.

As a constituent, your MP has a direct responsibility to represent your concerns to the government.

Please write to your MP and ask them to write to Hamish Falconer MP, Under-Secretary of State, FCDO. You can attach the WSC 2025 UNSC Briefing is on the website or include a link. By writing to your MP, you can express the need for international support, and demand the following points. Use your own words if you can; make some of the points—but don’t try and make them all. Concentrating on a few key demands will be more effective.

You can see some guidance from us here.

The UK should:

Promote a political, democratic way forward, by

● emphasising its support for the rule of international law

● maintaining a focus on self-determination, which is the legal right of the Saharawi people, and calling for a date to be set for a free and fair referendum to be carried out in Western Sahara with an option for independence

● demanding that Morocco provides more detail on what autonomy means in the context of self-determination for the Saharawis

● demanding that Morocco engages in discussions without pre-conditions that exclude independence from those discussions

Protect human rights, by

● calling on Morocco to stop blocking visits to Western Sahara by UN High Commissioners, if there is nothing to hide

● demanding Morocco ends the systematic campaign of repression and violence outlined by UN officials

Prevent the illegal plunder of natural resources, by

● demanding an end to the illegal extraction of natural resources from Western Sahara, without the consent of Polisario, the UN recognised representative of the indigenous Saharawi.

References:

¹ International Court of Justice, Western Sahara, https://www.icj-cij.org/case/61

²See the UN Secretary-General’s 2025 Report on the Situation concerning Western Sahara

https://minurso.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/s.2035.612.pdf

³The Rulings for cases T-512/12, T-180/14, C-266/16, T-275/18 and combined cases T-344/19, T-356/19 and T-279/19 can be accessed at the site of the EU Court of Justice, http://curia.europa.eu.

⁴African Court on Human and People’s Rights, 22.09.2022, Ruling on Application N° 028/2018 https://www.african court.org/cpmt/storage/app/uploads/public/632/e0f/3ad/632e0f3ad580e748464681.pdf

⁵https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2024/05/morrocan20initiative20for20negotiating20an20autonomy2 0statute20for20the20sahara20region.pdf

⁶https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-morocco-joint-communique-strategic-dialogue-2025

⁷A 2,700-kilometer-long sand berm, constructed from southern Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean at Guerguerat, near the Mauritanian border. This berm, which stretches 1,465 kilometers across Western Sahara, serves as a division between the western and eastern parts of the Territory. (UNMAS, 2025)