UN Expert Urges Morocco to End Crackdown on Sahara Human Rights Activists

"Not only do human rights defenders [...] in Morocco and Western Sahara continue to be unjustly imprisoned and criminalized for their legitimate activities, but they are also sentenced to disproportionate prison terms and, during their incarceration, they are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as torture," said Mary Lawlor. She who did not speak on behalf of the UN last Thursday was talking about the cases of activists Naâma Asfari and Khatri Dadda, detained respectively since 2010 and 2019 and serving sentences of thirty and twenty years in prison, reports the AFP.

According to the independent expert mandated by the organization, human rights defenders working on these issues in Western Sahara have been subjected to "acts of intimidation, harassment, death threats, criminalization, prison sentences, physical and sexual assaults, rape threats and surveillance". To support her words, she cited the example of Sultana Khaya and her family, victims of "attacks" by police officers, in mid-May in Laâyoune. Sultana and Luara Khaya are members of the Sahrawi Instance against the Moroccan occupation (Isacom), an organization founded in 2020 to defend the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi population and to work for the release of prisoners, the text specifies.

This statement by the expert provoked a strong reaction from Omar Zniber, Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. In a letter, he expressed his "great surprise and astonishment". Also, he categorically denied "the allegations" made against Morocco. Some of the human rights defenders working on Sahara issues "have been convicted by the Moroccan justice system for serious crimes, including the murder of law enforcement representatives," the Moroccan diplomat recalled.