Pro-Polisario Footballer Faces Deportation Risk After France Denies Asylum

The player has applied for political asylum in France due to the threats, she says, from the Moroccan authorities. But the French authorities rejected her request and arrested her on December 21 as she arrived at Orly airport (Paris) from French Guiana, where she had been in exile since May 2022, reports Publico.

According to sources close to the case, Jaafar is being held in a waiting area for asylum seekers located near Orly airport. The French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) rejected her lawyer’s request to reconsider its position. On January 3, although the lawyer appealed to the administrative court, the French authorities forcibly boarded Jaafar onto a Royal Air Maroc plane to deport her to Casablanca.

This first attempt to deport Jaafar failed due to the strong resistance of the Sahrawi activist who, according to her sister, is the subject of threats of "death, defamation, surveillance, blackmail and other forms of degrading treatment" because of her "claim to the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination".

Last Thursday, Alktif Saddam, a member of CODESA, visited Jaafar at the administrative detention center. According to him, the activist has suffered violence, the "marks of which were clearly visible on her neck and other parts of her body". For these reasons, CODESA calls for Jaafar’s immediate release. For its part, the Polisario Front has condemned this "forced expulsion".