RTVE Declines to Send Journalists to Fisahara Film Festival in Tindouf Camps

"This is not coverage that is usually done with a special envoy, but with elements that come to us from the Organization, the participants or the agencies. As always, we are attentive to the news," RTVE officials told El Independiente. An unjustified explanation when we know that the company has significant human (6,670 employees) and technical resources to carry out this type of report.

In October 2021, RTVE management had banned four of its journalists from traveling to the Tindouf camps, even though the Polisario Front had already obtained a visa for them and paid for the trip. This "incomprehensible and vague" decision had sparked a wave of resignations from the channel’s managers.

About twenty national and international media will cover this year’s Fisahara, which takes place from October 11 to 16 in the Tindouf camps, according to sources from the festival, which is resuming after two years of suspension due to the health crisis and the diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco. Placed under the theme "Let’s decolonize!", the festival will revolve around the Sahara, "a colony of which Spain remains the administering power, despite its recent change of position."

According to Abdulah Arabi, representative of the Polisario Front in Spain, this festival is "a tool for the Sahrawi people to denounce the injustice they suffer and demand the only possible solution, decolonization, as required by international law." "This edition is very special, because the FiSahara has survived economic and health crises, war... It is indestructible..." said María Carrión, executive director of the festival.