Tiflet 2 Prison, Morocco – May 2025
On May 5, 2025, Sidi Abdallah Abbahah — one of the Gdeim Izik political prisoners — marked seven years in solitary confinement in Tiflet 2 prison. Arrested in 2010 and sentenced to life imprisonment in a trial internationally condemned as lacking even the most basic legal standards, Mr. Abbahah remains locked away, not only from the world but from his identity.
This week, after submitting written notice of his intention to launch a new protest fast — a right under prison regulations — he was denied. In the following two days, a series of prison guards entered his cell one after another, delivering the same coercive message: “Stop saying you are a political prisoner. You are nothing more than a civilian prisoner convicted of common crimes.”
This is not merely psychological harassment — it is a political act by the Moroccan state to erase the existence of Saharawi political prisoners and to criminalize the very struggle for self-determination. Denial of political status is a denial of the cause itself.
Sidi Abdallah Abbahah has spent years in prolonged solitary confinement, a condition condemned by the United Nations as a form of torture. He has endured medical neglect, ill-treatment, and repeated hunger strikes, each one a desperate attempt to reclaim his voice and dignity under brutal conditions.
His case was brought before the UN Committee Against Torture, which issued interim measures and later a final decision confirming that he had been subjected to torture. Despite this, Morocco has refused to comply with the Committee’s recommendations.
Moreover, his detention was declared arbitrary by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which found that his imprisonment violates fundamental international standards of due process and fair trial.
To this day, his lawyer, Maître Olfa Ouled, is prohibited from contacting him in any form — a blatant obstruction of legal rights and yet another layer of isolation and silencing imposed on him.
Instead of implementing international decisions, Moroccan authorities continue a campaign of institutional retaliation. By denying protest rights, blocking legal access, and attempting to force Mr. Abbahah to renounce his political identity, Morocco is not just defying human rights bodies — it is attacking the core of human dignity.
It is urgent that the international community, human rights defenders, and media do not stay silent. The price of silence is the continued erasure of prisoners like Sidi Abdallah Abbahah, whose only “crime” was to stand for freedom in Western Sahara.
