July 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The 18 Saharawi prisoners from the Gdeim Izik group, detained since 2010, have filed a new complaint for torture and unjustified detention before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
“The prisoners of Gdeim Izik have filed a complaint against Morocco before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention” for “acts of torture” and “political repression”, explained in a press release the Support Group for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Western Sahara based in Geneva.
According to the group’s statement, “Saharawis who campaign for free self-determination are subjected to discriminatory practices and have been sentenced to long prison terms on the basis of confessions contaminated with torture.”
A total of 23 Saharawis have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years to life in prison for the so-called Gdeim Izik case, the name of the protest camp set up in 2010 on the outskirts of El Aaiún and dismantled by force. by the Moroccan authorities.
The group has highlighted that four complaints of torture against Moroccan authorities have already been filed with the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva in early June.
The reason for this new complaint is that despite the opinion of the Committee in 2013 certifying that the detention of the activists was arbitrary, the Rabat Court of Appeal has confirmed the imprisonment. “On the part of the defense we have always considered that this sentence did not respond to the group’s criticism of arbitrary arrests,” the lawyer of the Paris Bar Association and defender of the activists, Ulfa Uled, lamented in statements to the station French RFI.
“A formal investigation into the acts of torture was never opened despite the fact that the prisoners were constantly denouncing them. What we obviously expect from the group on arbitrary detention is that they come and confirm their opinion from 2013 and tell us that, despite the judgment of the Rabat Court of Appeal, we are still in a situation of arbitrary detention”
The activists have been preparing complaints for more than a year for the “four Saharawi human rights defenders, severely tortured by the Moroccan authorities”.
Thus, they have asked the Moroccan authorities “to respect the decisions of the Committee against Torture, release all prisoners convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under torture and guarantee their right to reparation.”
Morocco was condemned in 2016 by the Committee for the torture suffered by Naâma Asfari, a Saharawi human rights defender and one of the spokespersons for the Gdeim Izik camp. In November 2021, Morocco was condemned again for the torture inflicted on three other Saharawi detainees.
At least 14 people died – eleven Moroccan policemen and three Saharawi civilians – during the violent eviction of the protest camp set up by the Saharawis in 2010 on the outskirts of El Ayoun in what is considered one of the first milestones of Spring Arab.
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite resistance from the Polisario Front. The 1991 ceasefire was signed with a view to holding a self-determination referendum, but differences over the preparation of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers have so far prevented it from being called.
In addition, the Polisario has considered the 1992 ceasefire broken after the eviction of Saharawi activists from the Guerguerat border crossing with Mauritania by Moroccan military forces in November 2020. Rabat considers the area between the post and the border with Mauritania as ‘ no man’s land’, while the Polisario Front considers it its own territory.
The latest twist in the dispute is the explicit support of the Spanish Government for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco for consultation between the Saharawi and Moroccan populations living in the territory.
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