PUSL.- Amnesty International has just published its annual report on the situation of human rights in the world. Below is the part of the report on the situation in Western Sahara.
MOROCCO AND WESTERN SAHARA
The authorities continued to violate the rights of Sahrawi activists through arbitrary house arrest, ill-treatment and harassment.
In October, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was renewed, but it still did not have a human rights mandate. Human rights organizations continued to be unable to access Western Sahara and the Polisario Front camps.
In September, Algeria broke diplomatic relations with Morocco.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND ASSOCIATION
Throughout the year, Moroccan authorities continued to violate the rights of Sahrawi activists through ill-treatment, arrests, and harassment. In May, authorities arrested Essabi Yahdih, a Sahrawi journalist and director of the online company Algargarat Media, at his workplace in Western Sahara. They questioned him in relation to his journalistic work and accused him of filming military barracks in the Western Sahara city of Dakhla. On July 29, he was sentenced to one year in prison and to pay a fine. In Dakhla prison, he was denied medical attention to treat vision and hearing problems.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY
Moroccan authorities extensively used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, targeting the device of Saharawi human rights defender Mahjoub Maliha infected with Pegasus software, violating his right to privacy and freedom of expression .
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
Mohamed Lamine Haddi, convicted in connection with the Gdeim Izik protest, has been in solitary confinement since 2017. In March, prison guards had ended his hunger strike to protest ill-treatment by force-feeding him, a measure that constitutes torture under international law.
During the year, members of the security forces raided Sultana Khaya’s home in Boujdour at least three times. According to her testimony, during a raid in May, members of the security forces beat and attempted to rape her with their batons, and attacked and raped her sister. On November 15, members of the security forces raided her home, and raped and sexually abused her two sisters and her 80-year-old mother(*).
(*) Morocco and Western Sahara: More information A Saharawi activist raped by Moroccan forces: Sultana Khaya (Index: MDE 29/5058/2021), November 30 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde29/5058/2021/en/
