<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, Sans-Serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span><div><b>For Immediate Use <br><br></b><h1 class="ha"><span id=":kh" class="hP" tabindex="-1">Broken Families: A Western Saharan man becomes a leader for his people¹s struggle for justice</span></h1><br></div><span><div><div lang="EN-US"><div><div style="text-align:justify"><i>Broken Families,
</i> premiering on Sunday, 2 February 2014 on Al Jazeera English,
follows Western Saharan community leader and activist Brahim Dahane as
he seeks justice for his community against a range of abuses. Filmed
over
a six-month period, Dahane finds himself becoming the voice for the
families whose sons or brothers have been arbitrarily imprisoned,
secretly detained or disappeared, held without trial, tortured and
ultimately tried by a Moroccan military court during peacetime. </div><div style="text-align:justify">The
25-minute documentary follows Dahane, a spokersperson for his Saharawi
community, in his day-to-day life as he is caught up in one of the
world’s longest-running and
least-known conflicts, in Western Sahara, which has been occupied by
Morocco since 1975.</div><div>"Brahim never set out to be an activist,"
says Giles Trendle, Al Jazeera’s Director of Programming. "But from his
first detention while a teenager, he has been imprisoned three times and
undergone
severe physical and psychological torture at the hands of the Moroccan
authorities. His marriage has been destroyed by the stress of his
imprisonments and his family life deeply affected. Now, through his work
and voice, he is determined to help reunite other
families separated by the conflict."</div><div>"For me, occupation is a
synonym for slavery," says Dahane. "It is injustice and punishment. It
is all forms of human rights violations. It is aggression and
subjugation."</div><div>In December 2013, Morocco signed a controversial
European Union fisheries agreement for Western Sahara waters, which met
with resistance. Morocco also has an ambitious solar project planned for
the disputed region. Alongside repeated human rights abuses, this has
led to mounting pressure and demonstrations across Western Sahara ahead
of April’s United Nations’ discussions on the peacekeeping mission
there.</div><div>Dahane was one of a number of activists assaulted in
January 2014 at a demonstration calling for the UN to monitor human
rights abuses. “Dozens of Saharawi protesters were injured after police
attacked
the crowd with their truncheons,” says director Louise Orton. <span>“Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch have consistently reported human
rights abuses in the Moroccan-occupied zone of Western Sahara. But
astonishingly, MINURSO,
the UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, is the only modern
peacekeeping mission in the world without a mandate to monitor human
rights. People in Western Sahara are eagerly waiting to see what will
happen when this is up for discussion in April this
year.”</span></div><div><div><div><span><i>Broken Families</i></span><span> premieres on Sunday, 2 February 2014 at 22h30GMT on
<i>Witness</i>, Al Jazeera's flagship documentary strand. </span></div></div></div><div><div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="">Note to editors:</span></b><span style=""></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Vimeo links for review and high-res photographs are available on request. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Filmmaker Louise Orton is available for interviews. </span><span style=""></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-size:13px"></span></font></div><div style="font-size:medium"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt">Regards</span></font></div></div><div style="font-size: 16px;"><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt">Kevin Kriedemann & Joy
Sapieka</span></font></div></div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt">Publicists: Africa</span></font></div></div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt">AL JAZEERA MEDIA NETWORK</span></font></div></div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt"><a href="tel:%2B27%2083%20556%202346" value="+27835562346" target="_blank">+27 83 556 2346</a> (Kevin)</span></font></div></div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;font-size:12pt"><font><span style="font-size:9pt"><a href="tel:%2B27%2073%20212%205492" value="+27732125492" target="_blank">+27 73 212
5492</a> (Joy)</span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></span></div></div></body></html>
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