John Pilger shows his support for new Western Sahara documentary The Runner

[Saeed T. Farouky]

John Pilger, BAFTA and Emmy award-winning journalist and filmmaker,
recently gave his support to the latest feature documentary from the
award-winning Palestinian/British filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky.

The Runner is a film about endurance, and the burden of being a hero.
It is the story of Salah Ameidan, a champion long-distance runner from
Western Sahara, Africa's last colony. After suffering arrest and
torture under Moroccan occupation, Salah sought asylum in France where
he now lives and continues to compete under the flag of a country that
doesn't exist.

Salah is considered a hero of the Western Sahara independence
movement, challenging human rights abuses and raising the profile of
this obscure cause.

Pilger said of the film "The Runner is an excellent and necessary way
of telling the 'forgotten' story of Western Sahara."

Saeed and the team behind his production company - Tourist With A
Typewriter - are still in production on this ambitious film, and have
only a few days left to raise all the funds they need for the next
stage of filming in mid-January.

They launched an online fund-raising campaign to offer incentives -
from a Sahrawi flag signed by Salah to a ticket to the film's premiere
- in return for your support. To read more about the film, and to see
how you can help please visit http://igg.me/p/14535?a=8049&i=shlk

(Western Sahara is officially the last colony in Africa. Virtually
unknown on the world stage, Western Sahara is an area larger than the
United Kingdom and has been under Moroccan occupation since 1975.

Filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky is London-based human rights and social
justice filmmaker. He was named Artist-in-Residence at Tate Britain
2009, and is a Senior Fellow at TED.)