Talk:Dakhla, Western Sahara

Western Sahara Statute
Western Sahara is a territory and not a sovereign country as mentioned by User::Koavf. Western Sahara Territory is administered by the kingdom of Morocco since 1975. Putting the term "country" in front of "Western Sahara" is a great mistake. User:Koavf is well known for his support to separatism in the Western Sahara Territory. User:Koavf is behind the wikipedia Western Sahara Project where Western Sahara is presented as a sovereign country and where many wrong and incomplete information are published to not say propagated. Western Sahara has no seat among the United Nations, so why presenting it as a sovereign country!?--BirLahlou (talk) 12:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * BirLahlou, please assume good faith and avoid personal attacks. I replaced "country" with "territory" in the infobox; if that works for everyone, we can extend the change to other towns in Western Sahara. --gribeco (talk) 15:59, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 1 May 2021
Dakhla is a moroccan city not occupied city by Morocco. 197.253.214.216 (talk) 09:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:22, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 May 2021
Dakhla is a Moroccan city, it's not occupied by Morocco, it is Moroccan, there is no such thing as Western Sahara, I'm now in the Moroccan Desert and everything is Moroccan here, I couldn't find anything related to Western Sahara, the whole region is Moroccan 196.64.65.87 (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:36, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

dakhla
the city is not occupied if you want reliable resources you can come by yourself and see it by your eyes everything in the sahara is moroccan and no can change that even your poor wikifakia 196.117.20.14 (talk) 09:44, 3 January 2022 (UTC)


 * True fact. Wikipedia is edited by bandits. Spreading propaganda and lies. 2.102.84.225 (talk) 13:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

About the "African Testament"
Cardinal Cisneros was Inquisitor in Castile, not Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He was a statesman: regent, just as the Cardinals Mazarin and Richilieu were the prime ministers of France successively at the time, and in turn great influential leaders in the religious courts around them.

In and from Europe, the data, figures and rigor indicate that the Spanish courts were the most lax against what the Black legend says. And all this in comparison throughout all the periods of existence of all the inquisitions of the Christian World. 88.24.127.251 (talk) 11:34, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Debate on neutrality of the lead of this article
As was kindly noted by @MrOllie, I am bringing this debate to the article's talk page.

I made a few edits to address the neutrality of the lead in Dakhla, Western Sahara.

I believe feel that the current version of the lead and infobox is biased towards the position of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, in that it says that the city is "occupied" by Morocco, rather than a disputed between the two sides. I attempted to address the issue in this edit, where I clarify both positions and the current status to make it obvious that it's a disputed territory that is administered by Morocco, as done in the Laayoune, another disputed city in in the Sahara by the same parties. My edits were reverted by M.Bitton, who thinks thinks otherwise.

I would like to get a neutral party's opinion (as in not me or @M.Bitton) on this issue, as we have debated this at length already.

Copied from NPOV noticeboard Vyvagaba (talk) 17:45, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The current is based on reliable sources (the UN and a scholarly source. More could be added if needed). It shows a widely known undisputed fact, so what you think is irrelevant. Also, the only debate that I'm interested in at this stage (while the ANI report is till open) is your deliberate misrepresentation of the sources. M.Bitton (talk) 17:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Please explain what you mean after reading what I wrote below. Vyvagaba (talk) 18:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Detailed Answers to questions and notes by M.Bitton raised on my talk page
As a courtesy to @DeCausa, here is a detailed list of answers for the questions and notes made on my talk page regarding this article.

Why are you removing sourced content that is factual and undisputed?

There are no removed facts in the edits I made. I changed "currently occupied by Morocco" to "the city is under de facto administration by Morocco" and "It is the capital of the claimed Moroccan administrative region Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab." to "It is the capital of Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab region administered by Morocco, under the supervision of the UN peacekeeping mission MINURSO."

I also expanded to infobox in the article to match the one in Laayoune, which appropriately explains the state of the city neutrally, as opposed to the current infobox, reads as if the city is not disputed.

You know very well what I'm talking about (the sources about the occupation).

I did not remove any sources about the "occupation", I removed one source, and the source I removed was a second UN source on the same topic:

Source kept:

Source Removed: The source does not mention the word "occupied".

'''It's an undisputed fact that is used throughout wikipedia. Just look as similar articles (Ukraine, etc.).'''

It is a undisputed fact that there is a dispute between Morocco the SADR, using the word "occupied" is disputed.

'''Don't play games with me. Your edit removed the word occupied and the supporting sources.'''

I removed the word "occupied", I removed only one source, and nowhere in the source I removed was the word "occupied" used. Vyvagaba (talk) 18:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Since you are now pretending that the sources don't mention the word occupation, despite the fact they both do, I will simply ignore you and let the ANI run its course (my guess is that you have no valid explanation for the fact that you misrepresented the sources and are now trying to find a way out by pretending that you don't see what they say). M.Bitton (talk) 19:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Are you even serious? you don't need to be that tech savvy to know how to search for "occupation" on a webpage.
 * You keep going on with your "misrepresentation" show and you have nothing to say. It goes to show you how you just keep going on with the personal attacks without having anything to back it up! Vyvagaba (talk) 20:07, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It's all about basic reading comprehension (assuming, while being extremely generous, that's where the problem lies and this is not just an attempt at finding a poor excuse to justify the fact that you misrepresented the source). M.Bitton (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Back to the point
Moving on from the ANI report does not address NPOV, and the open NPOV report which was too immature to report; the debate should be the article's talk page to reach some consensus on the my view the lead is bias to one side of the story.

There are many sources that don't use the word "occupied" to describe the current situation in the Sahara, and instead use terms like adminstered, controlled or de facto controlled by Morroco, and I believe those views should be acknowledged, instead of just including "occupied" which represents one side of the story.

Note that the UN sub-agency assigned to deal with the Sahara itself doesn't use the term "occupied" in it's most recent publications, despite the fact that the UN source dated 1980 currently included does use the word "occupied", a point which I missed previously. Some examples of reliable sources that don't use the word occupied include:


 * United Nations Mission For The Referendum In Western Sahara "MINURSO continued to assist both parties in maintaining the ceasefire across the ‘berm’, which stretches along the entire length of the disputed territory and separates the Moroccan-administered portion (west) from the area that is controlled by the Frente Polisario (east)."
 * ICRC "Both parties eventually accepted the Settlement Plan and a cease-fire formally took effect in September 1991, with Morocco controlling the vast majority of the territory and Polisario controlling a sliver along the eastern and southern borders."
 * Human Right Watch "Morocco, which claims sovereignty and exercises de facto control over Western Sahara, has long opposed the inclusion of human rights monitoring in the mandate, with the support of France."
 * BBC "This ends with a UN-brokered cease-fire which sees the Polisario controlling about 20% of the territory, the rest being controlled by Morocco.",
 * France 24 "Morocco de facto controls 80 percent of the vast desert region, rich in phosphates and with a long Atlantic coast abutting rich fishing waters."
 * Childrens Rights Research "These two dominant narratives are the narrative of the Moroccan nationalists on the one hand, and of the Sahrawi activists on the other. According to the Moroccan nationalists, the Western Sahara is Moroccan territory. According to the Sahrawi activists, Morocco is illegally occupying the Western Sahara, a territory that belongs to the indigenous Sahrawi people."
 * Crisis Group "In 1979, Mauritania withdrew and left Western Sahara solely under Moroccan control. Over time, Rabat solidified its grip on most of this area by constructing a barrier called the “sand berm”, with the Polisario retaining control of the remaining 20 per cent, which it refers to as “liberated territory”."
 * Al Jazeera "Rabat controls 80 percent of the territory, including its phosphate deposits and its fishing waters.
 * Morocco, which maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom, has offered autonomy but insists it will retain sovereignty.
 * The Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which fought a war for independence from 1975 to 1991, demands a referendum on self-determination.".
 * New York Times "Despite that recognition, Morocco controls most of the country, including the entire 500-mile-long Atlantic coast, while Polisario is limited to occupying parts of the desert interior."

Based on these sources the phrasing I most recently suggested to improve this is the following:

Changing "currently occupied by Morocco" to "the city claimed and under de facto administration by Morocco, but is also claimed by the Polisario Front who, along with some rights groups, consider the city occupied by Morocco." and "It is the capital of the claimed Moroccan administrative region Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab." to "It is the capital of Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab region administered by Morocco, under the supervision of the UN peacekeeping mission MINURSO." I would love to hear some constructive feedback on this, with suggestions of wording changes if necessary. Vyvagaba (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Important notice Vyvagaba has misrepresented the sources, not once, but twice, and refuses to acknowledge what they did. Everyone told them that they are in wrong on the WP:NPOV as well as the WP:ANI board (where they are to explain their unacceptable behaviour). M.Bitton (talk) 21:43, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * this is a continuation of @M.Bitton's pattern of stopping any debate they don't agree with. I would love to hear useful opinions. Note that I'm presenting evidence to support my phrasing, while @M.Bitton is stone walling any debate. I would like to hear opinions on the evidence I presented above, to figure out if I'm "misrepresenting sources". Vyvagaba (talk) 22:02, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * So you're trying to write an article about a city under military occupation and not mention that it's under military occupation? Why? Would you expect that we would do the same for cities in Palestine or Russian-occupied Ukraine? I just don't understand what the incentive is. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:09, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the characterisation of the city as occupied would be like calling Beersheba occupied, there is a paragraph dedicated in the lead to discuss the history of the city, but the lead doesn't use "occupied". I am not arguing for removing "occupied"; I'm suggesting that the non-occupied pov be included. Vyvagaba (talk) 17:17, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * But it is occupied. That would be false balance. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a lot worse than that. Vyvagaba is desperately trying to whitewash the illegal occupation of Western Sahara by any means necessary (including source misrepresentation, forum shopping and persistent evasion of the issue). In any case, the ANI report is awaiting admins' action. M.Bitton (talk) 17:25, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2023
Dakhla is a city of Morocco, it is one of the cities of the Moroccan kingdom in North Africa 105.74.3.90 (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I suggest you read the article. M.Bitton (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Dakhla is in Western Sahara, not Morocco. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:56, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Banc d'Arguin National Park
The article says "...the Mauritanian Banc d'Arguin National Park are located in the south". The distance between Dakhla and Banc d'Arguin National Park is, however, well over 300 kilometers! Hardly nearby... Episcophagus (talk) 08:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Stolen fruits and vegetables
Hi can someone add chapter about fruits and vegetables plunder commited by marocco in Dakhla areas please there are still a lot of tomatoes 'maroc'. from Dakhla in our European supermarkets.

Cheers Alcide69 (talk) 21:30, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * You are terrorist militias on Algerian soil spreading propaganda. 2.102.84.225 (talk) 13:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 April 2024
There’s no official evidence from the United Nations that says Morocco is occupying Western Sahara it’s a biased information. 2001:4C4E:11C4:F300:8C79:CA48:E8D3:83E6 (talk) 17:45, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: The evidence is in the cited sources. M.Bitton (talk) 17:49, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Please do not post lies or waste others' time. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Correction of the map
There is no country called Western Sahara, the part you’re splitting in your article is basically all Morocco; for you to go to Dakhla for example you need a visa from Morocco and to take a Royal Air Maroc flight and land in Morocco, go through Moroccan immigration control in a Moroccan airport then go take a taxi to your hotel. But before you do that don’t forget to exchange some currency to the Moroccan Dirham because you will need it. 2.102.84.225 (talk) 13:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)