Morocco Expels Catalan Delegation Seeking Human Rights Meetings in Western Sahara

At Laayoune airport, as soon as they landed, two Moroccan plainclothes police officers boarded the plane to check identities. They then informed the visitors that they could not get off without reason. The latter were therefore forced to take the same flight back to Las Palmas, their starting point, explained David Minoves, a member of the Catalan delegation as coordinator of the Catalan Cooperation Development Fund.

The Catalan delegation consisted of three members of Parliament, representatives of the Catalan Cooperation Agency and the Catalan Cooperation Fund, and the Association of Solidarity Municipalities of the Sahara, according to the Heraldo.es website.

To recall, last year, 43 foreign activists, mainly Spaniards, favorable to Sahrawi independence, were expelled from the Sahara, according to the report by the Media Team, a platform of Sahrawi journalists.

Although Morocco never gives written orders for these expulsions, it generally justifies them later on the grounds that these are visits that take place "with an agenda hostile to Morocco" or because they have not been scheduled according to the Moroccan authorities.