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national unity over the issue of Morocco's claim to the territory in the Sahara presently administered by Spain.
During the summer and autumn of 1974 many members and supporters of the UNFP, including a number of AI adoptees, were released from prison. May 1975 saw further releases and light or suspended sentences passed on detainees held at Casablanca. Most of the leading opposition parties, some of which were allowed to hold public annual conventions for the first time in years, have called on the Moroccan government to show its good faith by granting a general amnesty to political prisoners.
AI has been encouraged by these moves, and by the appreciation which Moroccan parties and individual prisoners have expressed of Al's work in their country. In January 1975, for example, the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP-formerly the Rabat branch of the UNFP) sent a cable to the International Secretariat expressing the party's "sincerest thanks" for the "courageous action" which AI had taken in the past on behalf of imprisoned Moroccans.
Mozambique
In September 1974, Portuguese authorities handed over political control in Mozambique to the unified liberation movement Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO).
Although a general amnesty for political prisoners in Mozambique was granted soon after the Portuguese coup d'état in April 1974, a considerable number of people have been detained by FRELIMO since then. Many of those arrested are presently being held at a FRELIMO-run camp in southern Tanzania, where they have been seen twice by journalists. Samora Machel, President of FRELIMO, gave a public undertaking that the prisoners would not be maltreated and stated that it was FRELIMO's intention to rehabilitate them into Mozambique society.
In June 1975 Amnesty International sent a representative to Mozambique to discuss the continuing detention of these prisoners and to request that a general amnesty be granted to mark the achievement of independence on 25 June 1975.
Namibia
A series of much publicized human rights violations focused international attention on the Namibian situation during the latter half of 1974 and increased pressure for the withdrawal of the South African administration in accordance with the 1966 United Nations' decision to terminate South Africa's mandate over the country.
In June 1974, Ezriel Taapopi and Josef Kashea, two young officials of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), who had been detained some months before, were charged with offences under the Terrorism Act and put on summary trial in Windhoek. In a joint mission with the Washington-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Amnesty International sent British lawyer Cedric Thornberry to observe the trial and report on the situation of other political detainees in Namibia.
Both the accused were ultimately convicted but received minimum sentences, and other SWAPO leaders who had been detained were then charged with less
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