Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

Sahrawi human rights advocate and trade unionist Malak Amidane will visit Australia this month to share her experience of campaigning for justice in her homeland.

Previously a Spanish colony, Western Sahara was invaded by Morocco and Mauritania when Spain withdrew in 1975.

Today, 80% of the territory land is controlled by Morocco.

Amidane will meet with politicians and union leaders to lobby for greater support for Western Sahara.

She will also present a public lecture in Adelaide on May 3 at 5pm, at the University of Adelaide, Lower Napier, room G03.

Activists delivered an early birthday present for Rupert Murdoch to The Advertiser building in Adelaide on March 9.

Occupy Murdoch delivered a yellow “uranium” cake, along with demands for media reform, to the office of the News Ltd tabloid.

Activist Tamara Otello baked the cake, which she explained was intended “for The Advertiser staff”.

She said: “It hasn’t been laced with anything nasty ... unlike The Advertiser. It’s actually a chocolate mudcake.”

After two decades of political deadlock, Africa’s oldest refugee population is losing faith in UN mandated peace negotiations.

“No one will give us our freedom — we must take it!,” Sahrawi journalist Embarka Elmehdi Said told Green Left Weekly.

Said sees little hope for a peaceful resolution to the crisis that has gripped Western Sahara since its independence from Spain in the 1970s.

A child when her family fled the Moroccan invasion of Western Sahara in 1975, Said has spent most of her life in the Polisario run refugee camps on the Western Sahar-Algeria border.

Ryan Mallett-Outtrim & Laura Gilbie

The self-immolation of five activists in January briefly brought international attention to growing unrest in Morocco, evidenced by the mass demonstrations that began a year ago.

It is in the capital, however, where political rallies have become something of a permanent fixture.

Three times a week, the well-tended boulevards of the Moroccan capital are overrun with dissatisfied tertiary graduates, demanding jobs.

The rallies can last for up to six hours.

Laayoune is the largest settlement in Western Sahara territory, which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975.

The Sahrawi people continue to demand independence after decades of poor treatment under Moroccan rule. Many Sahrawi report being routinely subjected to police brutality and say they suffer widespread discrimination.

Activists in Laayoune face a day-to-day struggle with local authorities. The city is touted by the Moroccan government as a regional development hub, but from the ground looks more like an infantry barracks.

Fundamentalist Christian street preachers faced stiff opposition from activists who rallied against their public sermons in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall on September 2.

Members of the right-wing religious group found themselves surrounded by a large crowd of activists who rallied for more than five hours.

The rally’s theme was “love not hate”.

The rally aimed to show solidarity for those who have received verbal abuse and suffered violence, particularly homosexual youths often targeted by the fringe Christians.