Sahrawi activists denounce an increase in Moroccan pressure since the breaking of the ceasefire

Saharawi demonstration in the Rabuni refugee camp, in the Algerian region of Tindouf, to support Sultana Jaya and ask the UN for a mechanism to monitor the Moroccan police repression in Western Sahara, last February.Malainin Mistafa / EFE

Sahrawi activists denounce an increase in "repression" by the Moroccan authorities in Western Sahara since November 13.

That day there was an exchange of fire between the Moroccan Army and members of the Polisario Front in the Saharawi zone of El Guerguerat that broke the ceasefire established by both parties since 1991. The Polisario Front decreed a state of war and, since then, several activists warn about the surveillance of Moroccan agents in their homes and the limitation of their movements in Western Sahara.

The international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has investigated the case of Sultana Jaya, a 40-year-old activist whose home in the city of Bojador, in Western Sahara, has been under surveillance for more than three months by the Moroccan authorities, according to The NGO in a statement released last day 5. It indicates that the forces of order have prevented "without any justification" that several people visit her at home.

This surveillance and the "violation of the right to associate in one's own home", according to HRW, are "emblematic of the intolerance" of the Rabat authorities towards calls for self-determination in Western Sahara.

HRW requested information about the case from the Interministerial Delegation of Human Rights (DIDH) and this body responded in a letter that "neither she nor her family are being subjected to any particular harassment or surveillance."

Jaya told this newspaper in a telephone conversation on the 5th that her house, where she lives with her sister, her mother and another activist, has been under surveillance since November 19, 2020. “It has become a prison where they do not leave leave or enter anyone ”.

She assures that more than 20 people regularly monitor her, with and without uniforms.

"We have been under house arrest for 108 days," he said.

"Every time we try to go out or document what we are suffering, we are victims of physical attacks, humiliations and insults."

Jaya also claims to suffer a "fierce smear campaign" on social networks and in the media of the Moroccan state.

HRW indicates that, since November 19, Jaya has left her home "less than a dozen times" to walk for a few meters, film members of the security forces with her phone, and then return home.

He specifies that only once did he venture to walk 150 meters beyond his home.

According to the activist told the organization, several agents surrounded her at that time.

"They did not arrest or touch me, but I felt threatened, I feared for my life and returned home," she said.

"Pressure" opponents

Eric Goldstein, head of HRW in the Middle East and North Africa, pointed out in the aforementioned letter that nothing justifies the blocking of a house without a legal basis.

For Goldstein, the surveillance on Jaya aims to pressure, "psychologically too", those who oppose Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

The Saharawi activist El Mami Amar Salem, 42, recounted in a telephone conversation from the city of Dakhla, in southern Western Sahara, that on February 18 he was prevented from traveling to Bojador, a three-and-a-half hour drive away, because the police detained him with another friend.

“We wanted to visit Sultana [Jaya] to show solidarity with her.

The police were already waiting for us at the first control of the city, accompanied by intelligence agents.

They asked us for the car's documentation.

And after two and a half hours waiting, they returned our documentation and prevented us from leaving ”.

One of the spokesmen for the group of Sahrawi journalists Equipe Media, who requests anonymity, indicates from El Aaiún that since last November 13, "when Morocco broke the ceasefire", a score of Sahrawis have been watched at the gates of their homes for two months.

They all reside in El Aaiún, the administrative capital of Western Sahara.

Among them was the activist Aminatu Haidar, who is now out.

Now, these activists continue to be watched, but not for 24 hours;

not like Sultana ”, says the aforementioned source.

Activist El Ghalia Djimi, 60, has a message in Spanish on her WhatsApp profile that says: “We are all Sultana Jaya”.

From El Aaiún, she assures by phone that several police vehicles surrounded her house on the 6th. She also states that last Monday, International Women's Day, in which several Sahrawi women demonstrated in El Aaiún, she was followed by a motorcycle from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon.

Djimi maintains that he has suffered "police monitoring and persecution" for three months, since on September 20 he created the Saharawi Instance Against the Moroccan Occupation.

“I have videos and license plates of the cars that have chased me.

And they stopped following me on December 25th.

But from that day on they have set up a cafe next to my house and Moroccan confidants come there every afternoon to pretend they are playing bowling.

We recognize them because, even though they wear civilian clothes, they communicate with wireless radios ”.

Djimi explains that if the Sahrawi activists do not claim self-determination, the situation may seem perfect, "despite the military and police presence in the streets."

“But as soon as a person tries to speak out, they already know that discrimination, intimidation and economic marginalization await them.

That's what happens with Sultana and her family.

I am a peaceful defender of human rights and the self-determination of the Sahara.

Morocco should not force us to accept the occupation.

He has to have the courage to convince the Sahrawis of his presence in the occupied Sahara ”.

The state organization Consejo Nacional de Derechos del Hombre (CNDH), equivalent in some respects to the Spanish institution of the Ombudsman, was consulted by this newspaper about the situation in Western Sahara after November 13.

A spokeswoman referred to a brief statement that the CNDH published after Sultana Jaya denounced on social networks that she was injured in the eye in February due to a stone thrown by a police officer.

The statement concludes by saying that, due to the "contradictory versions" about what happened, the CNDH sent a letter to the prosecutor's office in which it recommended that an investigation be carried out on the facts denounced.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to obtain the version of the Moroccan authorities through the Ministries of the Interior and Communication.

Sitting in favor of a Moroccan intellectual in prison, disbanded by the police

Moroccan agents broke up a sit-in in front of Parliament on Friday afternoon in Rabat in which around 50 men called for the release of 60-year-old Moroccan historian and activist Maati Monjib.

Abdellatif El Hamamouchi, president of the intellectual support committee, told this newspaper that several people were injured.

"Among them, myself, on one legs," he said.

Monjib has been on a hunger strike since Thursday, March 4 with the aim of launching a "call for help" to public opinion in the face of "persecution and injustice" that he claims to suffer from the State, as he wrote in a published letter by their attorneys.

The historian has been in prison since December 29, accused of "fraud and an attack on the security of the State."

Monjib pleads not guilty and points out that the true cause of his imprisonment is his articles critical of the State.

The dissolution of the sit-in by the forces of order was filmed by private telephones and disseminated on social networks.

Monjib will be on a hunger strike this Monday for 11 days.

"We fear for his life," Hamamouchi said.

“He is diabetic and suffers from cardiac arrhythmias.

He has already lost five kilos.

And he has told his lawyers that he will not give up the hunger strike "