Intern for Western Sahara campaigns

- The international human rights organization Solidarity Rising is looking for an intern to be based at one of our partner organizations in Germany, Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, at their Berlin office.

- You will organize outreach activities, assist with the building of an online resource database, work in close contact with the German solidarity movement for Western Sahara, assist with mapping the international solidarity movement and various other tasks.

We are an international human rights organization founded in 2019 that works in solidarity with occupied people’s. Our activities range from advocacy, movement building, influencing politicians, working directly with occupied people and organizing speaking tours and conferences. We have volunteers, partners and interns in multiple countries and our current focus is on Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa. We are working on multiple projects to raise awareness about and strengthen the solidarity movement for Western Sahara and our teams of volunteers, activists and interns are an integral part of this work.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP; Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV)) is an internationally active human rights organization that has been advocating for persecuted and threatened ethnic and religious minorities, nationalities and indigenous communities worldwide for more than 50 years. Through public relations and political work, the STP draws attention to injustices and demands respect for human rights.

Western Sahara is the biggest remaining colony left in the world according to the UN and the last  remaining colony in Africa. It was first colonized by Spain in 1884 and was later occupied by  Morocco in 1975. Since Morocco invaded the country, no foreign press or human rights  organisations have been allowed to enter Western Sahara. Freedom House ranks the Sahrawi's  civil and political liberties as one of the worst in the world on par with North Korea. The UN mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO, whose purpose is to carry out a referendum on independence has been systematically impeded by Morocco for 34 years and lacks a mandate to monitor human rights. There are systemic human rights violations of the local Saharawi population which don’t get the international attention they deserve. Western Sahara’s natural resources are illegally extracted and sold by Morocco to various countries, there are dozens of political prisoners and Germany has many companies involved in the occupied territories such as Siemens and Heidelberg Cement. Local Saharawi activists write reports and film the extraction of their resources risking arrest and torture in order to highlight their plight under occupation.