Human Rights in Western Sahara

This section examines violations by Moroccan authorities of the rights to speak, assemble and associate peacefully in favor of human rights for Sahrawis, including the right to self-determination. It examines unfair trials of Sahrawis in Moroccan courts; the involvement of the security forces in arbitrary arrests, violence and torture; the repression of Sahrawi demonstrations and associations; a system for handling citizen complaints of police abuse that delivers impunity rather than accountability; and restrictions on foreign journalists and observers.

This section also looks at Moroccan laws and how authorities apply them toward Sahrawi activism. These include, on the one hand, laws that are repressive in their essence and, on the other hand, laws that are not intrinsically repressive but that authorities either disregard or interpret in a repressive fashion.

Examples of repressive laws include those that prohibit speech or associations deemed to undermine Morocco's "territorial integrity." The laws governing public gatherings are not intrinsically repressive: they require prior authorization for most gatherings in public places, and give the wali – an official of the Interior Ministry – discretion to bar demonstrations that might disturb public order or public safety. But in the city of El-Ayoun in Western Sahara, authorities simply do not grant permits for demonstrations when they consider the organizers to be close to the "separatist" line.

In 2002, Morocco enacted a welcome reform to the Law on Associations, giving citizens the right to form an association simply by informing the authorities of its creation, and giving to the courts sole authority to prohibit an association. But authorities in El-Ayoun have disregarded this law in practice by preventing certain associations from fulfilling the formality of declaring themselves, leaving them in legal limbo.

Most cases in this report occurred between 2006 and 2008, that is, in the years following a particularly tense 2005. In May of that year, police broke up a demonstration by Sahrawis in El-Ayoun protesting the transfer of a Sahrawi inmate from El-Ayoun prison. That confrontation launched a cycle of pro-independence demonstrations, sit-ins and clashes with the police that lasted through much of 2005 and that spread from El-Ayoun to other cities in Western Sahara and to Sahrawi students enrolled at Moroccan universities. In the three years since this period of sustained protest that is sometimes referred to as the Sahrawi "intifada," clashes and public protests have been less frequent.

This report does not examine the extent to which persons in Western Sahara are free to speak, assemble or associate on issues other than Sahrawi human rights and the independence option for that region. It does not assess the rights enjoyed, for example, by trade unionists, or advocates on behalf of the unemployed, or Sahrawis who advocate in favor of, rather than against, Morocco's autonomy plan.

Similarly, the section below on trials concerns Sahrawi defendants with pro-independence sentiments. From this sample we are unable to say whether these trials are more or less fair than the trials of other types of defendants.

The Right to a Fair Trial

Morocco's justice system fails to provide fair trials to Sahrawis accused of politically motivated offenses. The courts have regularly convicted persons on the basis of statements that they repudiated at trial, either on the grounds that the police tortured them into providing and then signing the statements, or on the ground that the police fabricated their contents. Many defendants report that the police coerced them to sign statements that the police prevented them even from reading. The courts make virtually no effort to investigate these claims by defendants; they also ignore requests by defendants for prompt medical examinations following the period of police interrogation to check for signs of abuse.

The evidence of unfair trials is ample partly because, to Morocco's credit, trials are in practice generally open to the public. Moroccan and foreign observers have attended many politically sensitive trials and reported on what they observed.

This section examines five trials as case studies:

• two involving relatively well-known Sahrawi activists accused of inciting, organizing, or participating in violent protests;
• one involving a well-known activist accused of a common criminal offense;
• one involving two little-known Sahrawi youths accused of acts of street violence in El-Ayoun;
• one involving Sahrawi student activists accused of violence on the campus of their university in Rabat.

Human Rights Watch agrees that human rights work should not be a cover to pursue violent activities or activities that are recognizably criminal by international norms. In the trials that we studied, the defendants denied at trial all links to violence but expressed their pro-independence sympathies. Judging by the flimsy or dubious nature of the incriminating evidence, the prosecution of these activists seems part of a campaign by authorities not only to put them behind bars – even if these days Morocco locks them up more in rotation than en masse – but also to discredit their standing as human rights defenders.

By all accounts, a limited number of Sahrawis have engaged in politically motivated violence, sometimes during demonstrations, sometimes outside of demonstrations. They have thrown stones or, less frequently, Molotov cocktails, causing bodily harm and property damage. However, the courts frequently convict individuals of criminal acts such as these even though the evidence presented at their trial failed to demonstrate conclusively that they were guilty as charged.

The prison terms that Morocco has imposed since 2005 on Sahrawi political activists are shorter than those that the courts imposed in the 1980s and 1990s. In the earlier period, courts imposed ten and twenty-year sentences for politically motivated offenses instead of the sentences of three years or less that have been the norm more recently.[66] Today, as in the past, royal pardons free many prisoners before the end of their term.

Trials held in the court of El-Ayoun, by far the busiest in Western Sahara, give the impression of normalcy in several respects. First, lawyers say that they have regular access to their clients in prison and are able to plan their defense under normal conditions. Foreign observers attend many of the high-profile trials and generally encounter few obstacles when they do so. The judges generally do not cut off the defendants when they address the court on the facts of the case, including when accusing the police of mistreatment or repudiating their statements to the police. The judges also let lawyers denounce procedural violations that jeopardize their clients' right to a fair trial. They often do not stop defendants from shouting pro-independence or pro-Polisario slogans as they enter and exit the courtroom.

These factors do not diminish the inherent unfairness of their trials and of the verdicts and sentences that result. The common violations of due-process rights include:

• the torture or mistreatment by police of defendants under interrogation to extract a statement incriminating themselves or others;
• the improper coercion by police of defendants to sign a statement without permitting them to read it, the contents of which the defendants later repudiate;
• the refusal by investigating and trial judges to grant defendant requests for a timely medical examination to check for signs of torture or other abuse;[67]
• the acceptance by judges into evidence of incriminating statements made to the police without investigating defendant claims that they were extracted through abusive and illegal means;
• the common refusal by judges to grant defense motions to call exculpatory witnesses when their testimony might have probative value.

Defense lawyer Bazaid Lahmad of El-Ayoun summed it up this way:

Judges allow the defendants and their lawyers to have their say, to make their arguments. But when it comes to deciding on the verdict, it is the procès verbal [the defendant's statement as recorded by the police, the "PV"] that prevails. The written verdict always gives credence to the police PV, even when the court acknowledges that the defendant denied its contents before the investigating judge.[68]

Under Morocco's Code of Criminal Procedure, when the defendant stands charged with offenses that carry penalties of less than five years in prison (misdemeanors and infractions), the court is to deem a statement prepared by the judicial police as trustworthy unless the defendant can demonstrate it is not.[69] Thus, the burden of proof to exclude from evidence a statement prepared by the police rests on the defendant. This contrasts to the rules of evidence when the charges involve crimes – a more serious category of offense – in which case the code considers a statement made to the police merely as one piece of evidence among others, and there is no presumption as to its truthfulness. In practice, the evidence rule for misdemeanors and infractions makes it easy for the public prosecution and the investigating judge to take the statements prepared by the police and to incorporate them into their own reports with few if any modifications. Trial judges frequently – and contrary to what Moroccan authorities claim[70] – treat police statements as valid evidence without questioning the police agents who prepared them. The defense can ask the court to summon the police agents who prepared the statement to answer questions, but judges have and use the discretion not to do so.

In misdemeanor and infraction cases, the court's predilection for admitting statements that defendants have purportedly made to the police compromises the right of the accused to the presumption of innocence at each stage of the judicial process.[71] It makes it more difficult for defendants to effectively challenge statements and confessions made under duress.

To protect the rights of the defendant, reports prepared by the judicial police during the investigative, pre-trial phase should remain inadmissible in trial court until the prosecution meets the burden of proving their veracity and their legal validity according to the Code of Criminal Procedure. There should be a strong presumption against the admissibility of any confessions made while the suspect is being held in prolonged incommunicado detention, as this is when torture and ill-treatment are most likely to occur. As a general rule, convictions based solely on confessions are highly suspect.

The information on the following trials comes from trial observation reports by various human rights organizations and independent observers, Human Rights Watch interviews with defense lawyers and trial observers, and          

our examination of case files.

2007-2008 Trial of Naf'i as-Sah and Abdallah al-Boussati for "Throwing Molotov Cocktails at a Police Car"

The account of this trial is based primarily on the court's written judgment in the case[72] and the trial observation reports prepared by Swiss jurist Patrick Herzig on behalf of the Swiss League for Human Rights.[73]

Naf'i as-Sah and Abdallah al-Boussati are both residents of El-Ayoun who were born in 1988. They were not involved in human rights organizations before their arrest. Rather, their case is one among many trials of Sahrawi youths who had participated in street demonstrations and who authorities charged with committing acts of violence.

 

As-Sah and al-Boussati faced charges under Article 580 of the Penal Code for throwing Molotov cocktails at a police car in El-Ayoun on June 30, 2007, damaging the vehicle and injuring three of the policemen inside. Article 580 provides a sole punishment – death – for persons who deliberately set fire to structures that are occupied by persons or that are intended for that purpose, or to vehicles that contain persons.[74]

The police arrested As-Sah and al-Boussati several days after the incident. They remained in custody through their trial. The trial opened December 5, 2007 but the judge adjourned the case to January 9 and then to February 6, 2008, so that all of the witnesses could appear in court to testify.

In his "confession" to the police, as-Sah stated that Boussati had contacted him and proposed to pay him to recruit youths to throw Molotov cocktails at the police.[75] Al-Boussati, in his police "confession," describes a person who introduced himself as "Bikam" and who offered to provide al-Boussati with incendiary materials and pay him to use them against the police.[76] Both defendants made these statements in the absence of a lawyer. Moroccan law does not grant suspects the right to a lawyer during garde à vue (pre-charge) detention.

Al-Boussati repudiated this statement when he appeared before the investigating judge. As-Sah told the investigating judge, according to the court's written ruling, that "everything he had said to the police was untrue, that he had not participated in the events, and that he had made up what he told the police so as not to undergo further torture."[77]

At trial, the defendants again proclaimed their innocence and repudiated their "confessions" to the police.[78] As-Sah testified again that the police had tortured his statement out of him.[79] He and al-Boussati claimed that the police had pinned this case on them in retaliation for their peaceful, pro-independence views and activities.[80] As they filed in and out of the court, they flashed the 'V' sign with their fingers (for "victory") and chanted slogans in favor of Sahrawi self-determination, according to observers Herzig and Italian magistrate Nicola Quatrano.[81]

At the February 6 hearing, presiding judge Baha Khalifa called four witnesses: two of the policemen who were in the vehicle that was struck and two young boys who, in their police statements, said they had been playing in a nearby game room when they heard a commotion, looked up, and saw as-Sah fleeing the scene.[82]

The policemen testified that they did not recognize the persons who had thrown Molotov cocktails at their vehicle.[83] The two youth witnesses then testified in turn that they had not been near the scene when the crime occurred.[84] One said that the police "statement" contains things he had not told the police, whereas the other said his statement reflects what he had told them, but that he had said things that were untrue because the police had used force on him, according to trial observer Herzig. The judge then questioned the father of the second boy, who stated that the police had held his son at a police station for questioning for an entire day while ordering the father to remain outside, Herzig reported.[85]

The case file contained medical reports of the policemen's injuries and an estimate of the value of the damages caused to their vehicle.[86] It also contains a report that the police had confiscated three Molotov cocktails at the scene.[87] But the file contained no material evidence, such as fingerprints, linking the defendants to the Molotov cocktails, the defense argued. Moreover, the police did not apprehend them en flagrant délit but rather, several days later.

The court's ruling, handed down on February 6, 2008, is revealing. It dutifully notes the defendants' repudiation of their police statements and as-Sah's allegation of torture.[88] The ruling acknowledges that none of the witnesses who appeared in court could identify the assailants, and that the two minors – the only non-police witnesses – told the court that they had not even been near the scene. The ruling makes clear that by the end of the trial, the only incriminating evidence remaining were the defendants' police statements.

At this point, it would seem logical for the court, if it wished to convict, to explain why it chose to accredit these "police statements" rather than the defendants' repudiation of the statements, and to note what steps the court had taken to determine the credibility of as-Sah's allegation that the police had tortured his statement from him.

Instead, the court notes that when it comes to the commission of crimes [jinayat], the Code of Criminal Procedure treats statements recorded by the judicial police "as mere documents and pieces of information that are not to be taken into account unless there is additional evidence corroborating them."[89] On the other hand, the court notes, "in cases involving misdemeanors [junah] and infractions[moukhalafat], police statements are deemed trustworthy until proven to be otherwise."[90]

Lacking evidence in the file that would corroborate the defendants' "confessions" to the police, the court lowered the evidentiary threshold by downgrading the charge from a crime – an arson attack (Article 580) – to a misdemeanor assault on a public agent (Article 267). It then convicted them solely on the basis of their "confessions." It did so without explaining why it deemed their police statements to be trustworthy.

The judge sentenced as-Sah and al-Boussati to one year in prison each. On appeal, the court reduced their prison terms to ten months and they were freed in May 2008.

The as-Sah–al-Boussati case exemplifies the scenario described above by lawyer Bazaid Lahmad. Their trial had the outward appearance of a fair trial. The judge allowed the defendants to speak and recorded their allegations of torture and their repudiation of their statements to the police. He complied with defense requests to hear witnesses who undermined the prosecution's case, and he conducted the proceedings in the presence of several foreign observers. Nevertheless, the guilty verdict seemed predetermined rather than the outcome of weighing the incriminatory and exculpatory evidence presented in court.

2007 Trial of Mohamed Tahlil for "Arson"

The account of this trial is based on the court file, an interview with defense lawyer Bazaid Lahmad, and the trial observation report prepared by jurist Patrick Herzig on behalf of the Swiss League for Human Rights.[91]

Mohamed Tahlil, born in 1981, is president of the section of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH) in the city of Boujdour. He is a well-known activist who does not hide his support for Sahrawi self-determination; he chanted pro-independence slogans at his own trial.[92]

On September 19, 2007 the El-Ayoun Court of First Instance convicted Tahlil for an arson attack on a car in Boujdour.[93] El-Ayoun's Court of Appeals on December 4, 2007 upheld his conviction but cut the prison sentence from three to two and-a-half years.

The arson incident took place on March 9, 2007. According to the written report prepared by the prosecutor referring the case to trial, a policeman named Mohamed Fennouche arrived on the scene of the damaged car, chased a person through dark streets until he reached a well-lit area, where he said he recognized the person as Tahlil, before the fleeing suspect eluded him. According to the report, Tahlil is "known to the security services in Boujdour as one of those who incite disturbances." Policeman Fennouche said he recognized Tahlil from his features and clothing. The report identifies no other witness linking the suspect to the attack.[94]

The police did not arrest Tahlil on the day of the crime. Rather, he remained at liberty and left Morocco legally for Mauritania in May. The prosecutor's report states that the police arrested Tahlil on July 19, 2007 at a border checkpost and presented him to the prosecutor on July 21.

However, Bazaid Lahmad, Tahlil's lawyer, says that the real arrest date was actually several days earlier than the one recorded by the police and the prosecutor. He maintains that his client had been kept in garde-à-vue detention for an entire week, well beyond the three-day limit allowed by the law. Hoping to prove this, Tahlil's defense team asked the trial judge to require the police to produce Tahlil's confiscated passport, arguing that the date of the Moroccan entry stamp in it would reflect the real date the authorities had taken him into custody.[95] Demonstrating that his garde à vue detention had been illegally prolonged might cast doubt on Tahlil's "confession" to the police, which he was attempting to repudiate at his trial. It would also show that Tahlil had left Morocco legally since the incident, even though a policeman had supposedly identified him fleeing the scene of the crime.

But the court did not order the police to produce Tahlil's passport. Nor did it act on defense requests to summon for questioning the policeman who allegedly identified Tahlil fleeing the scene of the crime, even though he was the sole eyewitness linking Tahlil to it.[96]

The main evidence against Tahlil was his own signed "confession" to the police. At his trial, Tahlil repudiated this statement, saying he had falsely confessed only because the police were torturing him.[97] Tahlil denied any connection to the attack, but said he had been present in Boujdour on the day it occurred.

The report of the prosecutor notes that Tahlil, in his statement to the police, says that he had discussed burning a police car with Omar Boulsan, a Polisario figure based in the Canary Islands, who responded by promising Tahlil money and sending him, via Boulsan's sister, the sum of 1000 DH [about US$140]. This account, if true, would bolster official Moroccan efforts to portray Sahrawi human rights activists as violent and Polisario-directed.

 

The court convicted Tahlil, after accepting his statement to the police into evidence without investigating his claims of torture, declining defense requests to summon for questioning the sole eyewitness who had identified Tahlil, and declining to obtain from police his confiscated passport despite its potentially probative value.

2007 Trial of Eight Sahrawi Students at the University of Rabat for an "Armed Demonstration"

The account of this trial is based primarily on an interview with defense lawyer Bazaid Lahmad, defendant Abdati edh-Dhaya, and another student involved in the demonstration, Yahdih el-Bouehi.

There being no institutions of higher education in Western Sahara, Sahrawis from that region attend university in cities such as Marrakesh, Rabat, and Agadir.

May is a busy month on the political calendar of Sahrawi activists, with demonstrations and activities commemorating the Polisario national holiday (May 10), the founding of the Polisario (May 20) and the beginning of the 2005 intifada in Western Sahara (May 21). Activists were particularly mobilized in May 2007, after clashes at the University of Agadir set off a series of solidarity protests among Sahrawis on other campuses.

Sahrawi activists at the Mohamed V University in Rabat requested permission from university officials to hold a demonstration on campus May 9, 2007 and were refused, Yahdih el-Bouehi, 23, one of the student activists, told Human Rights Watch.[98] So they started a sit-in near the entrance to the Cité Souissi campus, displaying banners demanding Sahrawi self-determination and the release of Sahrawi students arrested in Agadir and Marrakesh, along with photos of Sahrawi students allegedly injured by the police and by counter-demonstrators in the other cities. Sit-in participants chanted slogans in favor of Sahrawi independence and the Polisario, and against Morocco's autonomy plan.

According to el-Bouehi, who is from El-Ayoun and is studying law:

For nine days, we stayed there day and night. The police did not stop us or talk to us. Then on May 17, at 4 A.M., when we were sleeping, the police came and without asking us first to leave, broke up the sit-in with force and chased us away, arresting 17 of the participants. We were stunned.

At 8:30 or 9 A.M., el-Bouehi recalls, police again charged students who had gathered at the scene to protest the earlier arrests. Some protesters threw rocks at the police, and the police entered the dormitories and searched the rooms of Sahrawi students, he said. Police briefly detained an Associated Press reporter as he photographed the confrontations.[99]

Police detained protesters, transporting nine of them by van to the Rabat central police station, and releasing the rest. The nine included eight students and one non-student, Khalifa Jinhaoui of El-Ayoun. According to one of those kept in custody, law student Abdati edh-Dhaya (born in 1982), the police beat the arrested students in the van.[100] Edh-Dhaya said that at the station the police placed the nine suspects in basement cells, where they spent the night with no blankets. The next day, May 18, the police interrogated the students one by one, he said. Edh-Dhaya said that he appeared before his interrogators with his hands tied behind his back, sitting on his knees, barefoot and blindfolded. "They asked us about their political opinions, on the monarchy, on self-determination, why we opposed the Moroccan autonomy plan, and the objectives of the student sit-in," he said.

Edh-Dhaya estimates the police interrogated him for two and-a-half hours. Then they gave him a written statement, lifted up his blindfold and told him to sign it. "I asked to read it first, but they told me I had no right to read it. When I tried to refuse, they slapped me on my neck. I signed."

The following day, edh-Dhaya appeared before the prosecutor. With defense lawyers present, he told the prosecutor that the police had beaten and insulted him and forced him to sign his statement. At no time, however, did any of the defendants receive a medical examination to check for evidence of mistreatment even though they had requested it, according to edh-Dhaya and lawyer Mohamed Benomanne, a member of the defense team.[101]

The charges against Khalifa Jinhaoui and the students, Mohamed Ali Ndour, Sidi Moulay Ahmed Aylal, El-Ouali Ezzaz Bin Mohamed, Ibrahim el-Gharrabi, Mohamed En-Najem Esghaier, Mohamed Jinhaoui, Sidi Mohamed El-Alaoui, El-Houcine ed-Dali' and Abdati edh-Dhaya, included participation in an "armed demonstration," destruction of public property (i.e., in the campus dormitories), and "disturbing the public order." The basis for the first charge was their statements to the police, in which some of them "confessed" to preparing Molotov cocktails for use. There were no allegations that the students had thrown any incendiary devices.

The students remained in jail after the Rabat Court of First Instance rejected their bid for pre-trial release. At trial, the defendants denied the contents of their police statements, saying they had engaged in no violent activity and had no connection to the Molotov cocktails, according to defense lawyer Bazaid Lahmad.[102] The case file included a report by a policeman who found a stockpile of Molotov cocktails on campus, but his report did not link it to the defendants, and the policeman did not testify at the trial. The director of campus dormitories testified at the trial to the discovery of Molotov cocktails on campus, but did not link them to the defendants.[103]

The court on June 12, 2007 found the defendants guilty of disturbing the public order and staging an armed demonstration. The repudiated confessions to the police about Molotov cocktails formed the basis for this charge. The court sentenced all of the defendants to eight months in prison. The Appeals Court on July 10, 2007 upheld the verdict and the eight-month sentence for Jinhaoui and reduced the sentences to four months for the remaining eight, including edh-Dhaya.

2008: Trial of Activist Naâma Asfari for "Drunk Driving and Assault"

The account of this trial is based primarily on extensive interviews with defendant Naâma Asfari and an interview with his lawyer Mustapha Errachdi of Marrakesh.

Asfari, born in 1970, is a well-known Sahrawi human rights activist who lives in France but travels frequently to Morocco and Western Sahara. There, he says, plainclothes police frequently follow him and question those with whom he meets. Asfari is co-president of the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Western Sahara (Comité pour le respect des libertés et des droits humains au Sahara occidental, CORELSO). He graduated from the University of Marrakesh, where he studied law. Asfari's father, Abdi Asfari of Tantan, is an ex-"disappeared," having been abducted by Moroccan agents and held without trial at a secret place of detention from 1976 to 1991.

Before Asfari's April 2008 arrest, Moroccan authorities had prosecuted Asfari once before, also on common criminal charges. The earlier prosecution stemmed from a January 5, 2007 incident at a checkpoint at the entry of the city of Smara in Western Sahara. There, a plainclothes police officer – not the usual uniformed officers who check the papers of drivers – told Asfari he could not enter the city. Asfari, who was traveling with his parents-in-laws from France, insisted that the agent provide a formal order for this refusal. The two men were facing one another inside the checkpost when, according to Asfari, the policeman started insulting him and shoved a desk in his direction, which Asfari pushed back toward the officer. The officer then slammed a chair at the desk, knocking things about. He then arrested Asfari.

Authorities held Asfari two days for investigation and another seven days in pretrial detention. He said he was not mistreated. He refused, however, to sign his police statement in the case file because it omitted parts of what he had told the police. At trial before the Smara Court of First Instance, he proclaimed his innocence on all charges. The court convicted Asfari on January 15, on the basis of statements made by police officers who had been at the checkpoint, on charges of disrespecting a public agent and destroying public property (a reference to furniture purportedly damaged during the incident). The court sentenced Asfari to two months in prison, suspended, and a fine.[104]

The 2008 incident and ensuing trial took place in the city of Marrakesh, which is not part of Western Sahara. Police arrested Asfari on April 13, 2008, after a late-night traffic incident. Asfari recalls:[105]

I had spent the week at the University of Marrakesh, where I had been meeting with Sahrawi student groups. All weekend long, plainclothes police had been trailing me in unmarked cars. That night they were in a Renault Clio. At about 10:30pm, I ran a red light and nearly hit a driver who had the right of way. The driver started screaming at me from her car. I got out and apologized but also shouted that she should stop insulting me. But I never laid a hand on her or her car.

As I was stopped there, two of the three men got out of the Clio walked over to my car. They ordered me to give them my car key and to walk with them to their car. They had me get in and sit in the back. Then they blindfolded and handcuffed me and drove away.

The whole thing was suspicious because these were plainclothes policemen, not the uniformed traffic cops who ordinarily handle traffic incidents.

While driving, the police didn't interrogate me. They just tried to humiliate me, saying things like, "You came here to help these separatists. Why don't you just keep out of it?" When I answered they punched me in the face. So I shut up.

They stopped the car and had me get out. I don't know where because I was still blindfolded. They took off my handcuffs, removed my jacket, shirt and shoes, and sat me in a chair. They put my hands behind me and around a tree trunk, and re-handcuffed them.

They asked me what I was doing in Marrakesh. I said I would not answer unless they put me in a normal situation. Someone kicked me in the stomach. Different persons tried to ask me about my links with the students. When I refused to answer they kicked me. Between the kicks and the cold from being bare-chested, I began screaming.

After two, two and-a-half hours, they said, "Let's try something else." While I was still seated, they lifted my feet onto a second chair in front of me and hit the soles of my feet with what felt like hard plastic batons, for two, three minutes. They paused, then started again. One of them burned me with cigarettes on my wrists. I heard people coming and going; they didn't ask me questions but occasionally one would insult or slap me. I began shivering violently.

After that, the police transported Asfari to a hospital:

At the hospital, they X-rayed my feet. The doctor, a young woman, said there were no bones broken. She put ointment and bandages on the cigarette burns. I told the doctor it was the police who did these things to me and I wanted a medical certificate. She left the room. I wanted to wait for her to bring a certificate but the police said, "Let's go, we'll get the certificate for you later." Of course they never did.

From the hospital, the police transported Asfari, blindfolded again, to another building:

Someone said to me, "We'll read you your statement. If you have a problem with it, you can tell the prosecutor. It says that you were intoxicated and assaulted the woman." I replied that I couldn't sign without reading it. Another man came in and said, "We're not here to answer your questions. We have a pregnant woman in the hospital because you hit her. Either you sign the statement right now, or you will sign it by force." I told them I'd sign it just so they'd leave me alone, but that I would tell the prosecutor everything. They lifted my blindfold just so I could put my signature on each page.

After I signed, they removed the blindfold and drove me to the central police station. It was now about 2:30 or 3 a.m. I asked if I could phone my family. They refused. I spent the rest of the night and the next day [April 14] in a jail cell at the police station. They gave me nothing to eat the whole time.

On Tuesday at 10 a.m., they brought me to the office of the royal prosecutor. I sat waiting in a small room until three or four o'clock in the afternoon, without anything to drink or eat. I did not have a lawyer yet. When they called me into his office, the prosecutor was looking down at a document and didn't ask me to sit down. He asked, "Were you driving drunk?" I asked, "How am I supposed to respond? Look at what condition I'm in." My face was bruised, my wrists were bandaged, my clothes bloody. He replied, "Just answer my questions. Were you driving drunk? Did you hit the woman?" I said no to both. He said, "OK, you can go now." The whole audience didn't last one minute.

(At the trial, the prosecutor denied that any signs of abuse were visible on the defendant's body when he first appeared before him.) Asfari continued:

Next they brought me to the Court of First Instance. The judge asked if I would like to have a lawyer. I told the judge about the police torture, but he told me to deal with that later. He set the trial for the 18th and refused to release me pending the trial. He sent me back to jail, where the next morning [April 16] I could finally contact my family by borrowing a cellphone from another prisoner.

The court charged Asfari with driving while intoxicated, assaulting a woman, possessing a knife without authorization, and destroying public property. The police report in the case file states that the police found a knife in Asfari's possession, and that he broke a window of the police vehicle, thus the charge of destroying property.

The prosecutor was to later claim, at the April 21 session of the trial, that he did not inform Asfari's relatives of his arrest because Asfari had refused to provide information about how to reach them.[106] Asfari denied this assertion. Asfari's lawyers argued in court that the police log does not indicate that the police had tried to contact the family,[107] as required by Article 67 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.[108]

In own testimony at the April 21 session of his trial, Asfari denied the charges. He stated that the police had interrogated him mainly about his political activities rather than the traffic incident. Asfari opened his shirt and raised his feet to show the judge where the police had beat him.[109] His lawyers asked the judge to order a medical examination, a request that the court never granted. Defense attorney Mustapha Errachdi said later that, at the trial, he could see bruises and other injuries on Asfari's body.[110]

At the April 21 hearing, the alleged victim and a bystander who said he saw the incident testified. Both said Asfari had assaulted the woman although their testimonies differed on details. The judge adjourned the trial until April 28 and refused to release Asfari from pretrial detention.

Asfari's wife, Claude Mangin, visited him on April 22 – a day after he had displayed his injuries to the trial judge – at Boulemharez prison. In a memo she wrote after the visit, Mangin said she had observed bruises under Asfari's eyes, marks on his wrists, traces of cigarette burns on his arms, grazed elbows, bruises on the inside of his thighs, and bruised and swollen feet.[111] Two days later, Moroccan authorities summarily expelled Mangin from the country (see below, section entitled Treatment of Foreign Observers).

When the trial resumed April 28, Asfari, during his testimony, again removed clothing to display his injuries and said the police had forced him to sign a statement whose contents were false. He asked the judge to order a medical examination; he also requested a medical report from his visit to the hospital on the night of his interrogation, to no avail. [112] The defense pointed out that the case file contained no report of a test establishing Asfari's inebriation and no material evidence of the knife police had charged him with possessing. They also pointed out that Asfari's alleged victim testified that she had not seen a knife in Asfari's possession. [113]

The court announced its verdict after the April 28 hearing. It dropped the weapons count but otherwise found Asfari guilty as charged and sentenced him to two months in prison and a fine of 3000 DH (US $420).

Asfari served his full sentence in Boulemharez prison and went free on June 13. On June 16 an appeals court upheld the verdict and sentence. Several days before Asfari's release, prison guards confiscated a twenty-page argument he had written for submission to the Court of Appeals and a notebook containing his observations of prison conditions and things he had heard from other prisoners. They have not returned these documents to him, he said. [114]

2005 Trial of Seven Human Rights Activists in El-Ayoun

Following the outbreak of almost-daily protests against the police in El-Ayoun in May 2005, police arrested seven of the leading Sahrawi political and human rights activists during June and July, both in El-Ayoun and in Casablanca. They charged them with inciting, organizing, and taking part in the sometimes-violent street protests. The seven are Aminatou Haidar, Hammad Hammad, Ali Salem Tamek, El-Houcine Lidri, Brahim Noumria, Larbi Messaoud, and Mohamed El-Moutaouakil. El-Moutaouakil, Lidri, Messaoud, and Noumria had belonged to the Forum for Truth and Justice – Sahara Section (Forum pour la Vérité et Justice, FVJ) a local branch of a nationwide organization advocating the rights of victims of past abuses. A court dissolved the branch in 2003 (see below, section entitled Freedom of Association for Human Rights Organizations). El-Moutaouakil is also a member of the executive bureau of the national FVJ, which enjoys legal recognition. Although less identified with particular organizations, Haidar, Tamek, and Hammad have all campaigned on behalf of Sahrawi political prisoners and "disappeared" persons.

The prosecution charged the seven with forming a criminal enterprise, willfully destroying public and private property, violence against public officials while in the performance of their duties, inciting others to commit violence, and inciting and participating in unauthorized demonstrations. They additionally charged some with membership in an unauthorized association, presumably a reference to their activities in human rights groups that had not received legal recognition from the authorities. They placed them on trial with seven less-known youths accused of being intifada activists.

The prosecution's case against the seven prominent activists rested on written statements that the defendants purportedly made to the police in which they implicated themselves and one another in planning, provoking and committing violent actions.

Police arrested Haidar on June 17, 2005, as she was leaving a hospital where she and two other activists, Fatma Ayyache and el-Houcine Lidri, had received stitches on their heads. The stitches were applied to treat injuries allegedly caused by the police clubbing them earlier that day as Haidar was arriving at a demonstration.[115]

Lidri and Noumria allege that after their arrest on July 20, the police tortured them at a secret place of detention before delivering them to the El-Ayoun jail on July 22 (see below, Alleged Torture of El-Houcine Lidri in 2005).

The main trial session was an 18-hour-long hearing that began on December 13, 2005 and ended at 4 a.m. the following day. The defendants all declared their innocence of all charges related to planning, inciting, and carrying out violence, and repudiated the contents of their incriminating statements to the police – as they already had done before the investigating judge[116] – saying the police had either extracted confessions from them by force or fabricated them.[117] Their lawyers argued that the credibility of the defendants' statements to the police was undermined further by the similarity of the wording attributed to them.[118]

Haidar's written statement, which she says the police never showed her[119] and which she did not sign, has her admitting that she incited the youth to demonstrate and naming Ahmed Sba'i as the provider of ingredients for making Molotov cocktails.[120] (An El-Ayoun court convicted Sba'i seven months later in a separate case and sentenced him to two years in prison.) The court rebuffed defense requests to summon witnesses for cross-examination, including other activists who were in detention at the time of the trial.[121]

The court convicted the seven activists of inciting and participating in violent demonstrations, on the basis of their statements to the police. It made no apparent effort to examine the validity of these statements despite their categorical repudiation by the defendants. The court acquitted them of the most serious charges, including forming a criminal enterprise. It handed them sentences of between six and ten months in prison, except for Hammad Hammad, who received two years.

In response to a letter from Human Rights Watch about the case,[122] Morocco's Ministry of Justice wrote that the defendants had used their "outward human rights activities as a cover to perpetrate acts of subversion or to incite others to perpetrate them." The defendants, said the ministry, "benefited from the legal guarantees of a fair trial and the court rendered its verdicts according to the law."[123] The ministry's letter acknowledged complaints filed by Noumria, Lidri, and Haidar about police violence against them and said that the investigating judge had opened an inquiry into their allegations. All of these investigations were still ongoing, according to the letter. Haidar said that, following her complaint, the prosecutor's office summoned her to testify about the police violence, but after she did so, she heard nothing further about the investigation.[124] To the best of our knowledge, these investigations found no wrongdoing by security forces.

Authorities released Haidar in January 2006, after she had served seven months in prison; a royal pardon in March 2006 resulted in early releases for Hammad, Lidri, Noumria, Messaoud, and El-Moutaouakil. Tamek, the seventh defendant, remained in prison until April 2006.

Complaints of Torture, Beatings, and Arbitrary Arrests of Sahrawi Activists

Morocco ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1993. In 2006 it took the positive step of lifting its reservation to Article 20 of that Convention, thereby recognizing the competence of the Committee against Torture to open an investigation when it "receives reliable information which appears to it to contain well-founded indications that torture is being systematically practiced" in its territory. Morocco recognized at the same time the competence of the Committee against Torture, under Article 22 of the Convention, to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals who claim to be victims of a violation of the convention.

Also in 2006, Morocco promulgated amendments to its Penal Code prohibiting torture and bringing the code's definition of torture closer to the one found in the Convention against Torture. The code, as revised, refers to:

any act that causes severe physical or mental pain or suffering intentionally inflicted by a public agent or upon his instigation or with his express or tacit consent, upon a person for the purpose of intimidating or pressuring him or for pressuring a third person, to obtain information or a confession, to punish him for an act that he or a third party committed or is suspected of having committed, or when such pain or suffering is inflicted for any other objective based on any form of discrimination.[125]

Despite these legislative measures, torture persists in Morocco in part because of a lack of political will to eradicate it.

This report contains the testimony of ten Sahrawis whom Human Rights Watch interviewed directly and individually and who described acts of torture or sustained beatings that they experienced at the hands of the police. All ten individuals were in custody at the time of the mistreatment; their cases are distinct from those where the police may have used excessive force in the course of dispersing demonstrations.

With respect to impunity, Human Rights Watch's investigation into these ten and numerous other cases indicates that despite evidence of torture and serious mistreatment, including badly bruised detainees who ­appear before prosecutors and investigating judges and who demand a medical examination in vain, and the many detailed complaints submitted in writing by alleged victims to offices of the prosecutor, Moroccan officials do not fulfill their legal obligation to investigate this evidence and hold the perpetrators responsible.

When asked about accountability for abuse, Moroccan authorities repeatedly cite the case of two police officers who served two years in prison for beating Hamdi Lembarki, a Sahrawi man, to death on an El-Ayoun street in October 2005. Outside of this case, we found no evidence that the many formal complaints lodged by Sahrawis of physical abuse by the police triggered a serious investigation, much less punishment of those found to be responsible. Justice Minister Abdelouahed Radi denied the existence of such evidence to a reporter:

We never received any complaints from the persons concerned. Regarding torture or illegal arrests, you have to have people who file a complaint. I don't wish to imply that there have never been any missteps, but these are isolated cases. We always react with strictness when the facts are proven. Those responsible for illegal acts have even received heavy sentences.[126]

The secretary general of the Justice Ministry, Mohamed Ledidi, said that Morocco's judiciary conducts serious and "honest" investigations in response to civilian complaints. When asked if the investigations included direct contact with the plaintiff, he responded that this depended on the case. "There are instances where the written complaint contains all the information that is needed [from the plaintiff], and it is not necessary for the prosecutor's office to contact him." Ledidi added that the prosecutor's office informs the plaintiff of the outcome of the investigation.[127]

The governor (wali) of El-Ayoun-Boujdour, M'hamed Drif, said in November 2007 that since he assumed that post a year earlier, he had heard of no cases of the police inflicting injuries on Sahrawis when they intervened in unauthorized demonstrations.[128]

The evidence presented in this report contradicts the claims made by Minister Radi, Secretary-General Ledidi, and Governor Drif. In the city of El-Ayoun alone, 12 Sahrawis who alleged that they were victims of torture, physical abuse, arbitrary arrests, and police harassment between 2005 and 2007 showed us copies of the complaints they submitted to the office of the prosecutor, with the complaints stamped as having been received. Of the 12, only one, Hamoud Iguilid, reported that authorities had contacted him as part of an investigation triggered by his complaint, and two others, Brahim Al-Ansari and Dahha Rahmouni, reported that authorities contacted them only to tell them that they had closed their files for lack of evidence. As far as we are able to determine, not one of the other nine complaints led to a follow-up contact with the person making the complaint, much less a finding of police misconduct. In another case, the prosecutor summoned Aminatou Haidar to give testimony as part of an investigation into her complaint that the police beat her on June 17, 2005, but she stated that she was never informed of the outcome of that investigation (see above).

Moroccan authorities informed Human Rights Watch of the disposition of seven complaints: they dismissed six for lack of evidence; the seventh, they said, was still pending. In four of the dismissed cases, they accused the complainants of deliberately spreading false information in order to undermine the ability of the police to carry out their duties (see Appendix 2 to this report).

What constitutes a proper investigation in cases where the main available evidence is the word of the complainant against the word of the police? In such cases, a search for the truth should include summoning complainants for face-to-face interviews, to determine the credibility of their testimony and to invite them to provide other evidence that may corroborate their claims. Ordinary citizens who fill out and submit written complaints may have evidence at their disposal that, unbeknownst to them, is relevant to the investigation.

This report describes three prevalent types of violence committed by police against Sahrawi activists and suspected activists: violence that police inflict during the interrogation of suspects in custody, violence against persons in their custody as punishment for alleged participation in illegal street demonstrations, and excessive force used to disperse illegal demonstrations. Some of the cases meet the definition of torture under Moroccan and international law; others amount to inhumane and degrading treatment, also forbidden by the Convention against Torture. The cases are presented below, except for one case of alleged torture, that of Naâma Asfari, which is discussed above in the "Right to a Fair Trial" section.

In the city of El-Ayoun, the alleged victims of police abuse readily named individual policemen who, they said, took part in abusing them. They identified them in their testimonies to human rights organizations and in the written complaints they turned in to the office of the prosecutor. It appears that a small unit of officers is assigned to handle Sahrawi protest and unrest in the city of El-Ayoun and is personally involved in putting down street protests and carrying out arrests and interrogations. The names of officers cited most frequently in incidents of alleged abuse are: Ichi abou el-Hassan, Moustapha Kamouri, and Aziz Annouche "et-Touheimeh" (known by this nickname, which refers to a birthmark on his face). It is not known which, if any, of these names are pseudonyms.

The testimonies of Sahrawi residents of El-Ayoun who named these officers are sufficiently numerous and consistent to give credibility to the allegation that these individual policemen are chronic abusers. Since the incidents described in this report, authorities reportedly transferred abou al-Hassan to Benslimane and Kammouri to Tantan. Annouche reportedly continues to serve in El-Ayoun. We have no information suggesting that any of them was disciplined in connection with these complaints. When Human Rights Watch presented to Moroccan authorities a sample of citizen complaints naming these officers, the authorities dismissed these complaints in their entirety (see Appendix 2).

Case Studies

Several youths, both in El-Ayoun and in Smara, provided testimony about the police detaining them, driving them to an isolated location, and then beating them as a form of "summary punishment" for their suspected participation in street protests in favor of Sahrawi self-determination.

El-Mehdi Ez-Zai'ar

El-Mehdi ez-Zai'ar, a twenty year-old resident of Haï al-Qasm in El-Ayoun, describes what happened to him on January 22, 2007:

At about eight o'clock in the evening, I was walking in Haï Katalonia [the "Catalonia" neighborhood] with a friend. A large police van stopped and a policeman dressed in civilian clothes stopped me and asked my name. Then he and a group of policemen in plainclothes put us in a car and blindfolded and handcuffed us. He asked me who had given me [Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic] flags and pamphlets, even though I wasn't carrying any. I said I didn't have anything to do with anything like that, and they started beating me.

The police drove me to Oued es-Saguia [a wadi, or dry riverbed, in the desert outside the city]. They took off my clothes, poured cold water on my body, and hit me with clubs. They asked again where I had gotten flags and pamphlets. I said I had nothing to do with flags or pamphlets. They threatened to rape me with their batons. I tried to keep them off me but I was in handcuffs and could not keep them from poking me with their club. One of them took out a knife and threatened to cut off my genitals, saying, "If you hand out any pamphlets, I will cut it off." One of them also took out a lighter and made as if he was going to burn the end of my penis. They also threatened to dig me a grave then and there.

Then they said that if I worked for them they would give me money and a mobile phone. When I refused, they clubbed me again. This went on until about 11 p.m. Then one of them got a phone call, and when the call finished, they stopped beating me, had me get dressed again and transported me to the police station on November 24 Street. They photographed me and asked me more questions.

I slept at the station that night. In the morning they questioned me some more: "Where are you getting these flags and pamphlets? Is there anybody in your family from the Polisario?" I told them, "I don't have any relatives in the Polisario." They released me at about one in the afternoon.

I recognized one of the ones who arrested me. He was tall and beefy, with a mustache, but I didn't know his name. During the interrogation, I recognized [officers] Behri and Aziz "et-Touheimeh."

Ez-Zai'ar showed us the report of a medical examination conducted by a doctor at a state hospital on January 24, 2007, the day after his release from custody.[129] It notes multiple bruises on the back of his shoulders and thighs and on his right wrist, swelling on the side of his neck and on the back of his head, and scratches all along both legs.

Ez-Zai'ar submitted a complaint to the prosecutor's office in El-Ayoun, detailing what happened to him and asking for an investigation. (The date of the complaint is illegible.) Assistant prosecutor Abdennasser Barzali told Human Rights Watch that they closed ez-Zai'ar's complaint on April 9, 2007 due to "lack of evidence."[130] Ez-Zai'ar told us that after submitting his complaint, authorities never contacted him about it, neither to solicit further testimony or other evidence, nor to inform him that they were closing the file.[131]

Omar Chtouki

Chtouki, a resident of El-Ayoun born in 1991, describes what happened to him during two run-ins with the police in 2007.

On February 18, we were organizing a sit-in near Bou Kraa Street near Zaouiyat ech-Cheikh. After about 10 minutes, the police came in to break it up. They arrested four of us and drove us to Oued es-Saguia, near the dam. They took off our clothes and stuck my head under the water and said, "If you don't cut it out with your demonstrations, you're going to die in the water here." Then they laid us down on top of stones. They blindfolded and handcuffed us and dragged us over the stones. Then they made a circle around us and hit us with their clubs. They took turns hitting us. We were lying like that for six or eight hours. It was close to midnight when they finally drove us to the police station on November 24 Street.

At the station they hooked us up to the "airplane."[132] They hit me with a cable, and kept asking, "Who is behind this? Who put you up to this?" We answered that nobody put us up to it. After they finished, they asked, "So what are you going to do to solve this headache? If you want, you can work with us. If you refuse, you can leave for Spain. But if you don't cut it out with the demonstrations, the next time we catch you at one, we're going to rape you."

Chtouki told Human Rights Watch that the police eventually took him down from the "airplane," photographed, fingerprinted, and discharged him after holding him at the station for about 24 hours. Two months later, the police stopped him again:

On April 7, when I left my house, a police car followed me and cornered me near a mosque. Among the officers there was Moustapha Kamouri, Aziz "et-Touheimeh," and Ichi abou el-Hassan. They were wearing plainclothes. They asked my name, and said to me, "We detained you in February."

I answered, "Yes, I was held after the demonstration at Zaouiyat ech-Cheikh." While they were talking with me, other police arrived in their cars and got out and came to where we were standing. Some of the police slapped me, then one named Hosni kicked me in the lower leg and broke it. When I fell, another one hit me with his club. Then they got back in their cars and left.

My friends took me home, and then we went to Hassan ibn Mehdi Hospital. My mother was with me at the hospital. We were there for hours without getting any treatment. They didn't even clean the blood off me. A nurse asked me what had happened, and asked whether I had been in a demonstration. But no doctor came. My father came and bribed the nurse, and they finally agreed to register me as a case unrelated to "the events." They put my leg in a cast, and I remained at the hospital for three days.[133]

Chtouki's father, Lahoussine Chtouki, of El-Ayoun, filed complaints with the prosecutor's office following each incident. The El-Ayoun Appeals Court stamped the complaints upon receiving them asش07/35 on February 21, 2007 and asش  7/61 dated April 25, 2007.

The Moroccan government provided Human Rights Watch the following information about action taken on Chtouki's first complaint:

An investigation into this matter determined that the plaintiff's claim is baseless. He claims to have been on Idris I Street, which is known to be a busy thoroughfare, where there obviously would have been eyewitnesses to the incident. Furthermore, his name does not appear on the official register of those being held in garde à vue detention, and his claim is not supported by witnesses. These considerations prompted the public prosecutor to close the case for a lack of evidence. The plaintiff has been notified of this decision.

Lahoussine Chtouki told us that neither he nor his son was aware of any follow-up to the two complaints he submitted. The prosecutor's office did not contact either of them as part of the investigation or notify them of the outcome of their complaints, he said.[134]

The following two cases involve the police allegedly abducting youths in the city of Smara and taking them to remote places for a summary beating, similar to what el-Mehdi ez-Zai'ar and Omar Chtouki reported experiencing in El-Ayoun.

Nifa' Akhtour

Nifa' Akhtour, a 17-year-old high school student in Smara, described what happened when the police seized him as he tried to flee a political demonstration organized by youths in Smara on October 2, 2007:

The policeman who grabbed me put me in a big blue car. I was by myself with six or seven policemen in plainclothes. They blindfolded and handcuffed me and put me on the floor of the car, face-up. They did not ask me anything; they just started beating me on my knees and elbows.

The car stopped. When they removed my blindfold, I saw we had arrived at Oued Silouan. For about one and-a-half hours, I stayed in the car. They did not ask me any questions. Then they started to beat me again, for about 15 minutes. I recognized the policemen but don't know their names. They took my cellphone and then left me there. I started walking until I found some people who were drinking tea. I made my way back to Smara, which was about 6 kilometers away.

Akhtour said the beating did not result in broken bones. He never filed a formal complaint about the incident.[135]

Kamal Dhlimi

Kamal Dhlimi, a 17-year-old from the Tantan neighborhood of Smara, told Human Rights Watch that one day in early October 2007, as he was leaving the Masira middle school where he is a student, around 2:00 or 2:30pm, policemen in uniform confronted him and asked his name. When Dhlimi identified himself, they escorted him to a large vehicle nearby, which had six or seven men inside. They had him board the car and then handcuffed him from behind and blindfolded him, he said. Dhlimi recalls:

They already knew me from the intifada.[136] They drove for a while and then had me get out of the car. We were in an industrial zone, where no one could see us. They asked me if I had participated in the intifada, and insulted me. They asked who was organizing the protests and where the Polisario flags came from. They grabbed my hair and threatened to break my leg if I did not answer the way they wanted. They hit me on the shoulder, face, and back, both with their fists and with a baton. This went on for 35 or 45 minutes. Then they removed the handcuffs and left me there while they drove away.[137]

Ngilla el-Hawasi and Zahra Amidane

Ngilla el-Hawasi and Zahra Amidane, residents of El-Ayoun born in 1991 and 1993 respectively, described their mistreatment at the hands of the police after they participated in a demonstration in 2007 at which a foreign photojournalist was taking pictures. El-Hawasi said:

It was February 21, around 9:30 pm. There was a demonstration on Skekeina Street, with about 30 demonstrators, all of us teens and children. A Swedish journalist [Lars Björk; see below, section on Press Freedom] showed up. We held up Polisario flags and banners with slogans. Just after we started our chanting, the police came. One police car went after the journalist. The other cars pursued the teenagers. The police were in civilian clothes. Ichi abou el-Hassan and the group of Moustapha Kamouri were there in cars. They caught nine of the demonstrators and brought us to the police station. It was all boys except for me and one another girl.

When we arrived, the policemen were shouting and threatening us. The police were divided into groups: one headed by Aziz "et-Touheimeh," another by Ichi abou el-Hassan, and a third by Moustapha Kamouri. I was in the last group. They put me on a room where the policemen held my hands and feet while Kamouri beat me with a water hose.

While he hit me, they asked me over and over, "Who brought this journalist?" They pushed my face into the metal cabinets until I was bleeding and half-conscious. Then one by the name of Rabi' [presumably officer Abdelhak Rabi'] from the DST [the Direction de la Sécurité Territoriale, one of Morocco's security agencies] came in and said, "It's not the first time you're here," and he hit me in the mouth, cutting my lip.

Then they brought me into the office of Aziz "et-Touheimeh" and asked if it was I who started the demonstration. They said they had detained the journalist, and from his camera they could tell who the participants were. They asked us if we had brought the journalist, but we said no. Then they asked if it was a Sahrawi human rights activist who had brought him. We answered no. They asked us who had given us the [Polisario] flags. They showed us pictures of other demonstrators and asked us if we knew where they lived. When we said no, they became more aggressive. They took us to a room that was dirty and removed clothes of the boys, leaving them only in their shorts, with no carpet on the floor. They left the girls in the same room with the boys.

They had taken us to the police station at around 10pm. The interrogators finished with us at around midnight. When it was time for them to leave, they told the soldier at the front door to leave the lights on. They left us on the floor. They wouldn't let us kneel or become comfortable, even though we were all bruised and in pain, and the boys were very cold.

In the morning they took us girls for more questioning. They hit us with their shoes, saying, "If you don't give us names, we won't let you out." We couldn't see the boys, but heard them crying, and the police shouting, "Names!" They didn't let kids go to the bathrooms, so they peed. The police gave them pieces of cardboard to clean the floor with. They took the girls into another room where there were a lot of bikes, motorbikes, and junk, and told us to clean it up. So we did.

When they saw we wouldn't give names, they called our families. When our families came, they gathered them in one room and told them that the activists were filling our minds with rubbish. They told our parents to keep an eye on us, and then they let us all go, at about three in the afternoon.[138]

Zahra Amidane recalled about the same course of events:

A woman came to the demonstration and told us to run because the police were coming .… But they caught up with me and clubbed me on the leg. I fell on my face. They dragged me into the police car and demanded to know my name. I gave them a fake name, "Ferri." They took me to the station of the judicial police.

The one in charge of the questioning was Aziz "et-Touheimeh". He asked me, "What were you doing in the street? What were you doing with the foreign photographer?" They said they had seen me carrying Sahrawi flag in the pictures. They blindfolded me and brought me into a room with no lights. They handcuffed me and bound my wrists to my feet. "Et-Touheimeh" hit me with a club all over my body. They took me out of that room and put me and another girl in a room with a bunch of boys.

My family came and asked about me, using my real name. The police answered that they had a girl named "Ferri" …. When they found out [that I had given them a false name], Aziz grabbed me by my hair and smacked my head against the wall. Then they photographed me and let me go.[139]

Repeated Arrests of Activist Hassan Duihi for "Traffic Violations"

Hassan Duihi, a resident of El-Ayoun born in 1964, works in the Ministry of Education. He describes himself as a human rights activist who does not belong to any organization but who often receives foreign visitors interested in human rights. His regular visitors include the France-based Sahrawi activist Naâma Asfari (see above, "Right to a Fair Trial" section) and Italian magistrate Nicola Quatrano, a frequent observer of trials of Sahrawis.

During 2007, police arrested Duihi three times on the grounds that the papers for his car were not in order. But the overall context of these arrests – including the beating and interrogations he underwent while in police custody – indicate that the automobile violations were a pretext for harassing a human rights activist.

On May 20, 2007 police arrested Duihi while he was driving his Fiat Uno in El-Ayoun in the company of fellow human rights activist Brahim Al-Ansari (whom the police targeted separately for harassment at other times; see below). Duihi recalls:

They arrested us on the pretext that the papers for the car were not in order. They brought us to a police station and held us there for nearly eight hours. The judicial police asked us questions about our relations with human rights activists and with international observers who were coming to observe trials. They asked me about my relationship with Naâma Asfari and Claude Mangin [Asfari's wife, also a pro-Sahrawi activist]. I told the police, "They're my friends; whenever they come to El-Ayoun I see them."

The police just asked questions; they did not threaten or touch us. At the end we signed a statement saying that we were driving without having the car's papers on board.[140]

Duihi filed a complaint with the prosecutor on August 9, in which he named officer Abdelaziz Annouche "et-Tuheimeh" as the one who questioned him. The complaint notes that the police impounded Duihi's car for four days after his detention for reasons he did not know.

Duihi told us that on August 3, 2007, the traffic police stopped him again while he was driving in El-Ayoun and confiscated his car and its papers even though, he claimed, his papers were complete and in order. He got the car back six days later, after paying a fine for a violation he said he did not commit.

Duihi's third encounter with the police was more serious. On August 22, 2007, at about 1pm, police in uniform stopped him while he was driving in El-Ayoun, took his car and brought him to the November 24 police station. According to Duihi:

The police took me to an office where they made me remove my clothes, took photographs of me and threatened to put them on the Internet. They blindfolded me and questioned me for about one hour, asking about my relations with Naâma Asfari, international observers, and with the ASVDH [Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations]. They slapped me several times on my face and kicked me on my bottom and my knees. After that, they left me standing in an office, blindfolded, all night long. The next day they said, "If you want to leave you have to sign this." When they removed my blindfold I discovered that they had smashed my glasses. I signed the statement but had no idea what I was signing. After that they let me go. It was about 4:40pm – almost 28 hours after they had arrested me.

Duihi recounted all three of these incidents in two written complaints he submitted to the prosecutor. The first is the above-mentioned one dated August 9, 2007. When he submitted it, the prosecutor's office refused to stamp it as received, Duihi said, so he mailed it instead. The prosecutor's office stamped his second complaint on August 27, 2007.

In response to a query from Human Rights Watch about the latter complaint, the Moroccan government stated:

A thorough investigation into the matter determined that the plaintiff is a reckless driver who continually attracts the attention of traffic officers for committing traffic infractions. The police filed reports on these violations and [the plaintiff's] car was impounded in the municipal pound, as befits the type of infraction he committed.

In regard to his arrest, this claim is unfounded and has no basis in fact or in the law. The prosecutor decided to dismiss this claim due to a lack of evidence. The plaintiff was notified of this decision.

Duihi, contacted on June 1, 2008, said he never heard anything from authorities after submitting his complaints: no one contacted him for additional information or informed him of the results of any investigation.[141] He added that he still had no idea about the contents of the statement he signed in the police station on August 23, 2007.[142]

Duihi said also that he had attracted police attention as someone who had urged a boycott of Moroccan legislative elections held on September 7, 2007. He said that in the days before the vote, police were stationed outside his house and, on the afternoon of September 4, police, led by officer Abdelaziz Annouche, conducted a search of his house when his wife and children were there but he was absent. Duihi told us that the police presented no search warrant or other document authorizing the search. They frightened his wife and children, he said, but did not break or take anything.

Duihi filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office in El-Ayoun, requesting that he investigate the September 4 police search of his home, but never heard anything back about this request. The request was dated September 6, 2007 and was stamped as received the same day and given the case number of ام ق07/43.

Arrests of Human Rights Activist Hamoud Iguilid

Hamoud Iguilid, an El-Ayoun resident who is president of the El-Ayoun–Sahara section of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (Association Marocaine des Droits Humains, AMDH), one of the oldest and best-established national human rights organizations, has been frequently detained arbitrarily but never charged. The focus of police questioning when they have held Iguilid showed that these detentions were prompted by his human rights activism.

Iguilid told us that on May 10, 2008 at about 8pm, police intercepted him on an El-Ayoun street, put him in a police wagon and handcuffed and blindfolded him. He said that the police held him in the wagon for 75 minutes, insulted him, and questioned him about the AMDH's activities and the El-Ayoun–Sahara section's involvement in May Day activities alongside union activists. The police searched him and confiscated from him about 700 dirhams (US $98), a written complaint by an alleged victim of human rights abuse, and a USB flash drive containing information related to the AMDH. They then removed the handcuffs and blindfold and released him on a road beyond the city limits.

Iguilid filed a complaint with the prosecutor and also sent copies to the ministries of interior and justice. The judicial police in El-Ayoun summoned him and took his oral testimony on May 15 about the incident. Reached by telephone on July 16, 2008, Iguilid said the authorities had not yet contacted him about the results of the investigation or returned to him any of the items the police had confiscated.

The police also arrested Iguilid on March 18, 2006, two days before the arrival of King Mohamed VI in El-Ayoun. They held him for several hours and then released him without charge, after the AMDH central bureau protested his detention. However police warned him to remain at home for the next two days and stationed police agents nearby, Iguilid said.[143]

In a 2005 incident, police arrested Iguilid at about 3 a.m. on May 27, the morning after the AMDH El-Ayoun-Sahara section had issued a report, under Iguilid's signature, alleging police abuses in response to the Sahrawi "intifada" that had been raging in El-Ayoun for several days.[144] The police released Iguilid without charge at 7 p.m. that day, he said. In a letter dated July 25, 2005, the Ministry of Justice told Amnesty International that police arrested Iguilid for being drunk in public.[145] Iguilid denied the accusation, explaining, "The Moroccan state has always used drunkenness and drugs as a pretext to arrest human rights and trade union activists."[146] Shortly before his arrest, Iguilid had given media interviews about human rights abuses committed by the security forces against demonstrators; he continued to do so after his release.

Police Detain and Beat Activists Brahim Al-Ansari and Dahha Rahmouni

Brahim Al-Ansari, 39, is a member of the El-Ayoun chapter of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) and of en-Nahj ed-Dimuqrati, the only legally recognized political party in Morocco that favors Sahrawi self-determination. Dahha Rahmouni, 40, is a member of the executive committee of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations (ASVDH).

According to Al-Ansari, the police arrested the two men at 10 p.m. on December 14, 2007 while they were in Rahmouni's car on Smara Road in El-Ayoun. Al-Ansari stated that two police cars, one carrying five uniformed policemen and another with three or four plainclothes officers, stopped Rahmouni's car. The police then drove Al-Ansari to a police station near the seat of the provincial government (the Wilaya) in El-Ayoun; they brought Rahmouni to the station separately.

Police questioned Al-Ansari in the police car for an hour before taking him into the station. He said they blindfolded him and took him to a room that, as he later discovered when his blindfold was removed, was an office. In that room, he said, several persons beat and kicked him in the face and on the back for roughly fifteen minutes. They demanded that he provide the personal identification number (PIN) for his mobile phone, which he refused to do.

Al-Ansari then learned that Rahmouni was also in the room and was having trouble breathing. Both men explained to the police present that Rahmouni had a medical condition, and requested that his family be allowed to bring his medicine. The police denied this request until Sunday, when Mr. Rahmouni paid a police officer to buy medicine, Al-Ansari said. Policemen placed the two men next to each other while insulting them. They were left in the room, still blindfolded, until the following morning, December 15. Guards remained in the room overnight.

In the morning, an officer entered the room and interrogated them about their relationships with human rights organizations and human rights activists. He asked how the men got information from victims, who took the victims' pictures, and to whom the pictures were sent. The officer also accused them of being members of the Polisario Front, which they denied. The interrogation continued until mid-day. In the evening, the officer returned, removed their blindfolds and advised them to stop their activities. They were again left in the same office, under guard, until the following morning (December 16), when the officer entered again and questioned Rahmouni. The two men were given nothing to eat until that day.

On the afternoon of December 16, police officers took Rahmouni to another room. Al-Ansari stated that other officers kept him behind and told him to sign a statement (procès verbal). When Al-Ansari asked to read it, the policemen refused, kicked him in the neck, immobilized him, and forced his finger onto an inkpad and then onto each page of the document.

When Rahmouni was brought back to the same room, Al-Ansari, his blindfold removed, said he saw multiple cuts or contusions on Rahmouni's face and back. The police officer who had conducted their interrogations then told them that the document they had signed would be used against them if they were arrested again.

At around 8 p.m. on December 16, police drove the two men in a green police van and released them on a side street near the stadium in El-Ayoun. On December 18, Al-Ansari and Rahmouni returned, as instructed, to the police station and collected their mobile phones and Rahmouni's car, which had been impounded.

In response to a letter requesting information about the case,[147] the Moroccan embassy in Washington replied to Human Rights Watch on February 21:

Rabat has just informed us that on December 14 2007 at 10:30pm, a police patrol … came upon a Renault 19 that was improperly parked in a dark location. When the police approached, the two passengers in the car refused to disclose their identities, prompting the police to take them to the police station.... The process of identification revealed that the men were Brahim Al-Ansari, who was released immediately, and Dahha Rahmouni, who was being sought pursuant to search warrants 1273, 1270, 808 and 1356 in relation to his suspected role in forming a criminal gang. The royal prosecutor was thus informed, a report was filed, and [Rahmouni] was placed under investigation without being placed in detention.

It should be pointed out that the allegations of Rahmouni and Al-Ansari are part of a strategy designed by the Polisario and the separatists to which these two persons belong. These moves are designed to inflame tensions and present the Kingdom as a "monster" that has no respect for human rights, and to sap the efforts to stimulate and enrich the democratic process in the Kingdom.

These maneuvers are mere provocations, timed to coincide with the third round of negotiations [between Morocco and the Polisario] over the question of the Sahara.

Moreover, the two persons never filed a complaint before the judicial authorities in the city of El-Ayoun, which proves yet again that their main objective was to go to the foreign media with their allegations and to thereby misinform public international opinion.

Dahha Rahmouni is a member of an unrecognized association that is in fact a Polisario agency in the southern provinces that seeks to undermine national unity and Moroccan identity and promote separatism.[148]

Contrary to what this official response states, both men submitted written complaints to the prosecutor in El-Ayoun on January 4, 2008 and provided Human Rights Watch with stamped copies of their complaints to prove it.[149]

Second, the response claims that police detained Rahmouni because of outstanding criminal warrants against him. Yet just two months later, Rahmouni was able to obtain a Ministry of Justice document stating he had a clean judicial record.[150] Authorities, moreover, permitted him to travel abroad shortly before and after his arrest, in September 2007 and then in February 2008.

These facts suggest that the warrants against Rahmouni lacked an evidentiary basis but, rather, were a means to legitimize what would otherwise appear to be an arbitrary arrest. In fact, Sahrawi human rights activists in El-Ayoun informed Human Rights Watch that the police often used these warrants (avis de recherche), which the prosecutor issues, as a means to harass activists by detaining them at will for brief periods, and then releasing them without any formal charges.

Third, the government's response mentioned that Rahmouni belongs to an "unrecognized association." The association in question, the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations (ASVDH), had followed the proper procedures for registering, but the local administration had refused to issue it a receipt for its application. In September 2006 a court ruled in favor of the ASVDH, saying that the local administration had acted improperly by refusing to receive its application.[151] Thus, the assertion that Rahmouni belongs to an unrecognized association is debatable.

Fourth, contrary to the government's claim that the police released Al-Ansari "immediately" on December 14, Al-Ansari stated that the police held him until December 16. Moreover, the government dismissed all of Rahmouni's and Al-Ansari's allegations as "baseless" but did not explain how it arrived at that conclusion, other than to accuse the two men of fabricating the charges to hurt Morocco's image.

Human Rights Watch raised all of the foregoing issues in a letter dated March 21, 2008 to Morocco's ambassador in Washington, Aziz Mekouar,[152] but never got a response. On May 5, 2008, the police summoned the two men and had them sign a notice informing them that their complaints had been dismissed for lack of evidence. It was, Al-Ansari said, the first contact they had had with authorities in relation to their complaints since they first submitted them on January 4.[153]

Of the many complaints cited in this report that citizens submitted to the office of the prosecutor in El-Ayoun, the Rahmouni–Al-Ansari complaint was the only one where the plaintiffs reported that the authorities had informed them of the outcome of the investigation. But like the rest (with two exceptions, those of Hamoud Iguilid and Aminatou Haidar, see above), the authorities never contacted the plaintiffs as part of their investigation into the complaint.

Mohamed Boutabâa's Complaint that Police Struck Him with Their Car

Mohamed Boutabâa, born in 1970, alleges that on May 17, 2006, police deliberately drove a car into him in the Maâtallah neighborhood, severely injuring him. The incident occurred in the context of pro-independence demonstrations staged on the occasion of a visit to El-Ayoun by a fact-finding delegation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Boutabâa submitted two complaints to the El-Ayoun Appeals Court.[154]

 

When we met with the assistant prosecutor at El-Ayoun's Court of Appeals, Abdennasser Barzali, on November 7, 2007, he acknowledged receiving both of Boutabâa's complaints and said they were still under review, a year and-a-half after Boutabâa had filed his first complaint.

The response that Moroccan authorities provided in May 2008 to an inquiry from Human Rights Watch stated that the investigation into Boutabâa's complaints determined them to be "specious complaints that aim to prevent public agents from fulfilling their responsibilities to maintain public order. For this reason the public prosecutor decided to close the case for lack of evidence. The plaintiff was informed of the decision on this matter."

Reached by telephone on July 15, 2008, Boutabâa said that since filing his complaints, the authorities had neither summoned him to provide additional information nor informed him that the complaints had been dismissed.

Human Rights Watch did not investigate the incident involving the automobile. However, given Boutabâa's injuries and the gravity of his complaint, the dismissive response by the authorities – who apparently never contacted him for additional information or to inform him of the case being closed – is part of a pattern of investigations that seem little concerned with discovering the truth.

Alleged Torture of El-Houcine Lidri in 2005

We include this older case because of the severity of the alleged torture and because, even though authorities stated at the time that they were investigating the alleged victim's complaint and at least three international human rights organizations submitted inquiries,[155] the complainant reported that authorities never disclosed to him the outcome of any investigation.

El-Houcine Lidri, a high school teacher born in 1970, is a well-known Sahrawi activist and a member today of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). He also belonged to the Forum for Truth and Justice – Sahara Branch, which authorities dissolved in 2003 (see section below, Freedom of Association for Human Rights Organizations). Lidri was among the many activists whom police arrested during the Sahrawi unrest that erupted in late May 2005. He lives in El-Ayoun.

Lidri said that the police arrested him, along with activists Brahim Noumria and Larbi Messaoud at the home of a fourth Sahrawi activist, Fatma Ayyache, in the Haï Zoumla neighborhood of El-Ayoun, on the morning of July 20, 2005. Lidri had given an interview the night before to Al Jazeera television on the recent arrests in Western Sahara. The police transported the men to the police station on 24 November Street. Lidri describes what happened next:

The police took each of us into separate offices and began asking me routine questions. Then [police commander] Ichi abou el-Hassan came into the room where I was and said, "You are the leader." Then they took me to another room where there was the chief of the judicial police, Omar Qaisi, and the chief of Renseignements Généraux,[156] [Hassan] al-Ghafari.

They asked me one question: "What is your position on the Sahara?" I replied, "The right to self-determination." Al-Ghafari said, "This is bad news. You will see."

The police handcuffed and blindfolded Lidri and drove him to a place that, when he got inside, he guessed from the echo to be a large hangar. Lidri recalled:

Then the investigation began. They asked all kinds of political questions: Who was behind the demonstrations, who was inciting them, about my interview the day before with Al Jazeera, about the relations I had with the Polisario, with NGOs, with Sahrawi human rights activists, and with the disturbances that were happening then in El-Ayoun.

I could recognize some of them by their voices: there was the security chief for the province Brahim Bensami, Ichi abou el-Hassan, Ghaffari, Abdelhak Rabi'.

They started hitting and kicking me. Bensami ordered them to bring a rod. With my hands cuffed and my ankles bound, they ran the pole between my wrists and ankles and then lifted one end so I was tilted and facing down. This put all the weight on my wrists and ankles. They put a chair on my back, in order to push down the chest, making it harder for me to breathe. They burned my wrists with cigarettes. They poured a liquid that burned my hands and inflamed them. At this point, I fainted. They untied me and pulled me up on my feet. Four men forced me to run, as if they wanted me to regain consciousness. They kept asking who was behind the activists.

They put me back in the "poulet rôti" [chicken on a grill] position, until I fainted again. They revived me the same way as before, then hung me "poulet rôti" a third time.

At night, they took me down and put me on a floor without any covering. From the odor and listening to people talking, I figured out that I was at PC CMI.[157]

Lidri says that on the next day, July 21, police subjected him again to sessions of the "poulet rôti" while blindfolded. On July 22, he says they transported him from PC CMI to the Security Wilaya (provincial security headquarters) in El-Ayoun. He continued:

That morning I appeared before the prosecutor. I told him how the police had tortured me and showed him the burns and wounds. He did not respond to what I was saying. He extended my garde à vue detention for one day and sent me back to the central police station.

From there, the police took me back to the PC CMI for three or four hours and tortured me again. This time it was revenge. They said, "Because you spoke to the prosecutor, we're going to do it again."

That night, after I had returned to the police station, they sent me to the hospital. A doctor looked at me but did not do a thorough exam. He touched me here and there, gave me an injection and prescribed some medication.

On July 23, I was brought before the investigating judge, along with [rights activists] Brahim Noumria, Larbi Messaoud, Mohamed el-Moutaouakil, and Fdhili Gaoudi.[158] We were all presented together. It was the first time since my arrest that I saw a lawyer.

Noumria and I requested a medical examination and said we wanted to file a complaint against those who had tortured us. The investigating judge asked, "Who tortured you?" I answered, "Security chief Brahim Bensami." The judge said, "We will see about that." The judge sent us all to the "Black Prison" [the Civil Prison of El-Ayoun]. There, a doctor saw me, asked me a few questions, and filled out a form. I was given traditional medicine to care for my arm. But my head was swollen, and I could not move my hand for three months.

Lidri stated that the police never presented him with a report (procès verbal) of his statement to them and that he saw it for the first time when he appeared before the investigating judge. The report did not bear his signature and noted that he had refused to sign it, he said.[159]

The investigating judge on July 23 ordered Lidri and Noumria held in detention on suspicion of participating in and inciting violent demonstrations, and belonging to an unauthorized association. Five months later, the El-Ayoun Court of Appeals convicted the two men along with five others (see above, the "Right to a Fair Trial" section).

Authorities told the international groups Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Front Line that they were investigating Lidri's torture allegations. Amnesty International reported,

According to a statement by the Crown Public Prosecutor of Laayoune, dated 3 August 2005, Lidri was submitted for a medical examination. The statement said the examination revealed that he bore no traces of violence; however, on the basis of his allegations, an investigation – which remains ongoing – was opened.[160]

In a meeting with Front Line, the Crown Prosecutor of El-Ayoun confirmed that Lidri and Noumria had alleged torture before the investigating judge on July 23. He showed Front Line a medical report dated July 25. The medical report noted that their hands and ankles had been bound but noted no other marks on their bodies, Front Line stated. The prosecutor told Front Line that the police log indicated that Lidri had been in police custody for three days, and denied that the police could have transferred Lidri from their station to the PC CMI.[161]

In February 2006, Human Rights Watch also received a communication from Moroccan authorities, stating that an investigation was continuing into Lidri's complaint of police violence.[162]

The investigation went nowhere, to our knowledge: Lidri reported that the authorities never summoned him to provide additional information after he formally complained and never informed him of its outcome.[163]

Freedom of Assembly

December 10 is international human rights day. It is the anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

On December 10, 2006, in downtown El-Ayoun, police violently dispersed a small gathering organized by local human rights organizations before the event could even begin. This incident entailed violations of the rights of association and of assembly and the use of excessive force by the police. Moreover, the perfunctory dismissal by authorities of complaints regarding police conduct that day suggests that the police can use excessive force with impunity when breaking up nonviolent demonstrations by persons labeled as "pro-separatist."

Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

The right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Morocco's Law on Public Gatherings does not require prior authorization to hold a demonstration in a public space.[164] Organizers must simply notify authorities of the planned event at least three days in advance. Authorities may forbid the demonstration by notifying the organizers, in writing, that they deem it "likely to disturb the public order," according to Article 13 of the law. The law qualifies the right in another important fashion: According to Article 11, the only entities allowed to organize public demonstrations are legally recognized political parties, trade unions, and professional associations. The law forbids "armed gatherings"[165] and "unarmed gatherings capable of threatening public security" and empowers the public authorities to disperse them.

Moroccan authorities use the wide discretion that the law affords them to forbid and to disperse political demonstrations as "likely to disturb the public order." The governor of El-Ayoun-Boujdour, M'hamed Drif, made clear to Human Rights Watch that the authorities systematically refuse to authorize demonstrations if they suspect the organizers of belonging to the independence camp.

The Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations (ASVDH) had attempted to follow the legal procedures for holding its December 10, 2006 demonstration, the organization's vice-president, el-Ghalia Djimi, told Human Rights Watch.[166] On December 7, ASVDH President Brahim Dahhane went to the office of the local administration (the bachaouia) to submit a written notification of the sit-in, indicating the sponsor (the ASVDH), motive (to commemorate International Human Rights Day), location (Place Decheira, in front of the Hotel Nakjir downtown), and time (5pm to 6pm on December 10). When the bachaouia refused to accept the notification in person, Dahhane sent it by express post and requested a return receipt, according to Djimi.

The Law on Public Gatherings states that after organizers of demonstrations on public thoroughfares have duly notified local authorities, they can proceed with their event unless local authorities forbid it in writing.[167] Between December 7 and December 10, no official contacted the ASVDH to inform them that they could not hold the gathering, Djimi said.

While the wali of El-Ayoun later argued (see below) that the ASVDH lacked legal status and was therefore not legally entitled to organize a legal demonstration, one could argue plausibly that it did have legal status. Three months before the planned demonstration, an Agadir court had ruled that the bachaouia had abused its authority in refusing to accept the ASVDH's founding papers (see below,section entitled Freedom of Association for Human Rights Organizations).

On December 10 at about 5pm about sixty members and supporters of the ASVDH and other local human rights organizations began to gather at the assigned place. Three would-be participants, el-Ghalia Djimi, Mohamed Boutabâa, and Mohamed Salih Dailal,said in separate interviews with Human Rights Watch that when they arrived, a large number of police, many of them in plainclothes, had already surrounded the square. Police Chief Ichi abou el-Hassan was on the scene directing the operations, according to both Dailal and Djimi; the provincial security chief (the "security wali") was also present.

According to all three participants, the police charged the demonstrators as they were arriving and beat them with clubs in order to disperse them. Dailal described the scene:

Security forces surrounded the square. A rapid-reaction force came, as well as a unit led by Ichi abou el-Hassan. We were from various Sahrawi rights and political groups. They attacked us with batons, bruising our arms and legs, and chased us out of the square. They chased me personally as far as my house in their car.[168]

According to Boutabâa,

People arrived in twos and threes beginning at 3pm. The plan was for every committee, the one for the "disappeared," one for the students, and so on, to give a speech about what had happened to them. But the police was already on the scene, and before anyone could begin speaking, they attacked.[169]

Djimi said the police pounced on the demonstrators without first orally ordering them to disperse, as required by the Law on Public Gatherings,[170] and confiscated her megaphone. In a written complaint she submitted to the prosecutor, she stated that police chief Ichi abou el-Hassan shoved her, insulted her, spat in her face, kicked her onto the ground, and hit her with a police baton.[171] Brahim Dahhane and Sidi Mohamed Hamia also submitted written complaints to the office of the prosecutor concerning the beatings they said the police administered to those who had sought to begin the demonstration.[172]

Ech-Cherif el-Kouri, of El-Ayoun, brother of the activist Aminatou Haidar, filed a complaint stating that police intercepted him as he was driving to the demonstration, put him in their car and beat him as they drove to the police station. At the station, they took him to the office of officer Aziz Annouche, shackled him, pulled down his pants, threatened him with rape, and beat him further. The police held him until 11pm, he said. At one point, police chief Ichi abou el-Hassan was present and threatened to do to his family the same things the police were doing to him, el-Kouri's complaint stated.[173]

The authorities said that the police dispersed the December 10 demonstration because it was "illegal," but denied that the police behaved abusively toward anyone. Responding to an inquiry by Human Rights Watch about the complaints filed by Djimi and Hamia, authorities provided identical responses to both:

The judicial inquiry into this subject determined that it concerns an unauthorized sit-in that could constitute a threat to public order and security because its organizers are known to the security agencies as provocateurs who aim to cause disturbances and sew public disorder. For this reason, security forces intervened in a responsible and disciplined manner, causing all of the protestors to disperse in different directions. The complaint is baseless and aims at impeding the police from confronting those who seek to disrupt public order.[174]

Djimi told Human Rights Watch that, contrary to what the authorities said, they never informed her of the decision taken on her complaint; in fact, she said, the authorities never contacted her about her complaint in any way since she submitted it.[175]

The official response to el-Kouri's complaint was equally dismissive. Although the prosecutor's office had stamped his complaint as received, authorities informed Human Rights Watch:

After looking into this matter and examining the records of the public prosecutor, it was determined that … the name of the plaintiff was present nowhere and that he had presented no complaint to the judicial authorities on this matter. For this reason, the public prosecutor decided to close the file for lack of evidence …. The aim of the complaint is to confuse and impede the activity of the judicial police. The concerned party has been notified of the decision.[176]

Reached by telephone on July 23, 2008, El-Kouri said that authorities neither contacted him to follow up on his complaint nor informed him of the outcome of any investigation.

The five participants in the demonstration cited here provide a consistent account of how security forces dispersed a peaceful gathering using force that was both excessive and premature, in violation of the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.[177]

M'hamed Drif, the governor of El-Ayoun-Boujdour, gave several reasons for refusing demonstrations like the one described above:

Here in El-Ayoun, it's exactly the same as in the rest of Morocco. My responsibility is to apply the law, and I apply it here as I did when I was the wali of Fez and of Casablanca.

When it is pro-separatists who want to organize a demonstration in relation to human rights, there is no problem. But when they want to organize a demonstration that is pro-Polisario, I say "No," just as we wouldn't allow a pro-Polisario demonstration in Fez or Casablanca. We are responsible for applying the law, and my first responsibility is to defend the territorial integrity of Morocco.

Governor Drif made clear why authorities routinely refuse to permit such events:

The ASVDH asked for permission to hold a demonstration. But they have no legal status, so who would be responsible for what happens? Basically, there are three reasons why demonstrations are broken up: when we know they [demonstrators] are directed and financed by the Polisario, when the demonstration is not legally authorized, and when there is a risk of violence.

Governor Drif claimed that authorities would permit "pro-separatists" to hold a demonstration if it were limited strictly to human rights issues. This claim seems disingenuous. First, only recognized associations are entitled to submit the legal notification necessary for an upcoming demonstration, and authorities have legalized no organizations, including human rights organizations, suspected of being run by persons with a "pro-separatist" agenda. The governor said:

For CODESA and the ASVDH, the problem is that their founding statutes do not respect the Constitution of Morocco. Their work must be within the framework of the Constitution. If they present an application for legal recognition that conforms to the law, like the AMDH or the OMDH did, then they will be approved. They must first of all renounce the Polisario line.

The authorities have wide discretion and use it to ban demonstrations whenever they suspect the organizers of favoring Sahrawi independence. They do so by labeling organizations and gatherings as "pro-Polisario," by denying associations the legal status they need in order to submit the legal notification of public gatherings, and by determining that demonstrations "threaten the public order." Activists still stage impromptu "illegal" demonstrations but on a small scale and infrequently.

Occasional Protester Violence Cannot Justify Broad Bans on the Right of Assembly

Moroccan authorities accuse Sahrawi political activists of inciting or condoning violence as part of the public protests they organize, in order to provoke a response by the police that will keep tensions high locally and prompt censure of Morocco internationally. The authorities invoke the risk of violence as a justification to prevent or break up demonstrations. Governor Drif said, "When there are demonstrations [that] can have consequences on persons and property, police must do their job …. When the demonstrations are violent, the police find themselves required to use force."[178]

Most pro-independence and human rights demonstrations in Western Sahara are peaceful, Human Rights Watch concluded from interviews with numerous residents of El-Ayoun. However, participants in some political protests, or persons on their periphery, deliberately obstruct public thoroughfares, throw rocks at the police, and in rare instances, throw homemade incendiary devices fashioned from cans, bags, and bottles (Molotov cocktails). "Sometimes protests start peacefully and then degenerate," said Rachid Bouhbehane, an ordinary policeman in El-Ayoun. "You have within a peaceful protest people who try to provoke by throwing stones. It degenerates because of a minority who try to provoke."[179] There are also, on occasion, politically motivated acts of violence that persons perpetrate outside the context of demonstrations, targeting police and sometimes civilians.

Such violence has injured both law enforcement officers and civilians. In the context of a Sahrawi demonstration held on February 26, 2008 in the southern Moroccan city of Tantan, policeman Abderrahmane Meski was fatally struck on the head by a stone.

Human Rights Watch interviewed several police and civilian victims of violence in El-Ayoun. It was not possible for Human Rights Watch to confirm the identity of the perpetrators or to know their political motivations, if any. Some incidents resulted in the trial and conviction of Sahrawi youths for throwing stones or incendiary projectiles. But the unfair nature of the trials makes it difficult to reach conclusions about the defendants' individual guilt or innocence. In most cases, at trial, the accused claimed that they had committed no violent acts and were being prosecuted because of their political sympathies alone.

Hafidha er-Raddad was in her hair salon in the Haï et-Taâwoun neighborhood in El-Ayoun with four clients on June 14, 2006, when someone threw a Molotov cocktail inside. Er-Raddad, who is thirty, divorced, and without children, recalled:

There were four hooded persons in the street. They tossed the bottle into my salon, shut the door and started running. The salon and the equipment, the carpet, and my diploma were all burned.

I have no idea why they hit my salon. I am Moroccan and have lived in the Sahara for ten years. I never had any problems with Sahrawis. I never heard about any racial incidents. There was nothing going on at the time in the street.

One of the attackers lost his hood. The police came and made a report.

I don't know the culprits, but neighbors said they are youths who live nearby and who are connected to politics. They did this kind of thing elsewhere. Three of them were arrested; the fourth escaped to Spain.[180]

The three men convicted for this attack were El-Hafez Toubali, Mohamed Lehbib Gasmi, and Ahmed Salem Ahmeidat. The El-Ayoun Court of First Instance on March 7, 2007 sentenced them each to three years in prison for participating in "a criminal enterprise" and setting fire to a building. On March 22, 2007, an appeals court upheld their sentences.

According to Amnesty International, their "conviction was based on written statements by police officers in which they said that the defendants had confessed their guilt. When the three men later appeared before an examining magistrate, they denied the charges and said that security personnel had forced them to sign the statements after subjecting them to beatings."[181] On October 8, 2007, when they appeared in court to face charges of contempt of court, they entered chanting slogans in favor of Sahrawi self-determination and the Polisario Front, according to Amnesty International.[182]

Er-Raddad said she spent six months in the hospital because of her burns. She has since reopened her shop but has not regained her clientele.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed police major Mohamed Lakraâ, who said that on May 17, 2006 a group of persons on Qods Street in the Maâtallah neighborhood of El-Ayoun attacked him and his partner with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Lakraâ, who was born in 1969, said a bottle struck him on the head, causing him to faint and leaving a visible scar above his left eye. Lakraâ said the assailants fled into the alleys. He described them as "a group of about ten, who looked to be about 18 to 20 years old, all wearing masks. They seemed to be from the area, since they knew which way to run. They were shouting slogans when they surprised us, things like "La badil, la badil 'an taqrir al-masir" [Self-determination is the only option].[183]

Law enforcement authorities have the right and responsibility to prevent and punish violent acts committed against persons and property, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators. However, the authorities must not use these incidents of violence as a pretext to impose sweeping restrictions on the right of people to gather in public or to protest peacefully. Yet that is what they have done repeatedly, forbidding demonstrations by Sahrawi activists or sending police to disperse them with force, even when the gatherings were peaceful and orderly.

Freedom of Association for Human Rights Organizations

Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

Morocco's constitution recognizes freedom of association in Article 9.[184] But its Law on Associations, while liberal in some aspects, violates international standards in other aspects. Notably, Article 3 prohibits associations that have "an objective that is illegal, contrary to good morals or that aims to undermine the Islamic religion, the integrity of national territory, or the monarchical regime, or that calls for discrimination."[185] These criteria are used to prohibit associations with certain political agendas, including advocacy of Sahrawi self-determination.

Individuals need no prior authorization to start an association, but they must formally declare its creation to the local authorities. They must furnish specific information about the association's address and office-holders. The law imposes penalties on persons who conduct activities on behalf of an association that has not complied with these procedures.

When an association submits its founding papers, the local authorities – who are part of the Ministry of Interior – must provide a provisional receipt attesting to their having received the papers. The authorities must provide a definitive receipt within 60 days; if they do not, the association may lawfully conduct activities in conformity with its statutes. If, during the 60-day period, the authorities oppose its legalization, they must provide reasons. The association can then appeal the refusal in administrative court by arguing that the authorities exceeded their legal authority.

Once an association has legal recognition, only a court can order its dissolution, pursuant to a 2002 reform to the Law on Associations. The law enumerates various grounds for dissolution, notably in Articles 3, 7, and 36, and imposes fines and prison terms on persons who continue to act on behalf of an association after it loses legal status.

As the cases below illustrate, the law is problematic not only because of its restrictive clauses, as delineated above, but also because of the way that Moroccan authorities apply, and sometimes, flout it.

Authorities point out that in the Sahara region there are hundreds of nongovernmental organizations[186] and that the Advisory Council on Human Rights, a national institution created by the monarchy in 1990 to protect and protect human rights in Morocco, opened its first local administrative office in El-Ayoun.[187] The Royal Advisory Council for Sahara Affairs (the CORCAS), created by King Mohamed VI in 2006, has a "Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Public Liberties and Camps' Populations."[188]

This report will limit itself to examining the harassment of Sahrawi human rights organizations based in Western Sahara. Despite the proliferation of other types of associations, authorities have not allowed the free operation of a single, regionally based human rights organization that actively exposes human rights violations committed by Moroccan authorities. They dissolved the Sahara branch of the Forum for Truth and Justice, refused to grant legal recognition to the ASVDH and CODESA, and impede the work of the local branch of the legally recognized Moroccan Association for Human Rights, through administrative maneuvers and multiple arrests of its president.

Aside from a small Marxist political party called the Democratic Way (en-Nahj ed-Dimuqrati),[189] Moroccan authorities have not to our knowledge recognized any associations or political parties that publicly support full Sahrawi self-determination.

The repression stems partly from clashing concepts of human rights. The conception embraced by Sahrawi human rights activists centers on the right of Sahrawis to self-determination, to be expressed via a referendum that includes the option of independence. In fact, many assert that it is from Morocco's denial of this right that most other human rights violations emanate. To Moroccan authorities, this conception is not only a politicized notion of human rights, but it also violates Moroccan laws against "undermining territorial integrity."

The ASVDH and CODESA continue to operate, but the denial to them of legal registration and a range of other repressive measures hamper their work. There are also many smaller human rights committees in Western Sahara that monitor conditions in the cities of Smara and Dakhla, or that focus on themes such as "disappeared" persons. These committees also exist in a kind of limbo because they lack legal recognition.

Human rights activists we interviewed reported that operating illegally impedes the growth of civil society in Western Sahara. Their organizations cannot hold meetings attended by large numbers of people and they live fear that at any moment their archives and documents will be confiscated in a police raid of their homes.

Forum for Truth and Justice – Sahara Section

The Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice was founded in 1999 as a national Moroccan human rights organization focused on advocating on behalf of victims of past abuses and their survivors, and on putting an end to impunity for human rights violations. The FMVJ registered a branch based in El-Ayoun, called FVJ–Sahara, some of whose leading members were well-known pro-independence Sahrawis.

FVJ–Sahara publicly denounced present-day human rights violations that they attributed to the Moroccan authorities, including when it briefed international visitors. On February 11, 2002, for example, FVJ–Sahara briefed a visiting delegation from the European parliament's ad hoc committee on Western Sahara.

In April 2003, the prosecutor petitioned the El-Ayoun Court of First Instance to order the legal dissolution of the FVJ-Sahara. The main evidence against FVJ-Sahara was a report by the judicial police of El-Ayoun alleging that the section's members used human rights as a cover to pursue both violent and diplomatic "separatist" activities. The police report lists, among other things, many meetings that the section had held with visiting foreign diplomats, journalists, and NGOs.[190]

The prosecutor's petition said the FVJ-Sahara should be closed for the following reasons:

• Its "failure to respect the organization's statutes because it did not use the full name of the mother organization, the Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice." To the prosecutor, this was one indication among many of the organization's separatist agenda.
• Its pursuit of activities that "can disturb public order through encouraging some youths who feel desperation owing to the social situation to commit subversive and destructive crimes in various cities of the Sahara region."
• Its encouragement "of holding demonstrations in public with youths bearing sticks, clubs, and knives."
• Its pursuit of activities that can harm the territorial integrity of the Kingdom, such as by maintaining contacts with foreign parties in furtherance of that objective,… plotting with foreign bodies and organizations that are hostile to Morocco, in order to harm Morocco's diplomatic standing; formulating slogans that are hostile to territorial integrity; making flags of the phony Republic[191] and distributing them to the public, along with publications hostile to territorial integrity.

While the executive bureau of the Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice in Rabat had reservations about how the Sahara section had been conducting itself, and had decided in early 2003 to suspend the section's activities, the executive bureau nevertheless opposed and publicly criticized the move by authorities to dissolve the section.[192]

On June 18, 2003, the El-Ayoun Court of First Instance ruled to dissolve the section.  Immediately following the court's decision, and without waiting to see if the section would appeal the decision, the police proceeded to seal the section's rented office in El-Ayoun, according to Lahoussine Moutik, an El-Ayoun-based accountant who was president of the section. The closure prevented members from accessing their files and belongings.

 

Eventually, Moutik said, the prosecutor allowed the landlord, but not the association, to access the premises – again, without any judicial decision. The association was never able to recover the materials it had in the office when the police sealed it, Moutik said.[193]

On February 20, 2006 Moutik attempted to fulfill the procedures for obtaining legal recognition again of the association, this time under the name Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice–Sahara (Forum Marocain de Vérite et Justice, FMVJ). But when he attempted to submit the papers of declaration, local administration (bachaouia) refused to issue a receipt for them, Moutik said.[194]

This refusal to accept the FMVJ–Sahara's declaration papers puts the association in a kind of legal limbo. It cannot hire a hall for a public meeting in its own name because it lacks legal recognition. According to Moutik, FMVJ–Sahara's president, the membership can organize meetings in El-Ayoun only when the national FMVJ applies on its behalf.[195]

The section's predicament shows how Moroccan authorities disregard their own law that gives citizens the right to create associations upon filing a simple declaration, and that designates the judiciary as the sole authority empowered to deprive associations of legal status.

The Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations

Sahrawi former victims of enforced disappearances were among the principal founders of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (Association Sahraouie des victimes de violations graves commises par l'état marocain, ASVDH). Their stated objective was to ensure a level of accountability commensurate with the grave violations that Morocco had committed.

The ASVDH sought legal status by following the procedures set forth in the Law on Associations. In January 2005, the ASVDH's founders informed the local administration (bachaouia) of their plan to hold a constitutive assembly. According to ASVDH vice-president el-Ghalia Djimi, the bachaouia refused orally, without giving an explanation, so the founders mailed in the notification.[196] After getting no response, they proceeded to hold their constitutive assembly on a rooftop in El-Ayoun, on May 7, 2005. They then tried to hand-deliver to the local authorities the papers legally required when creating an association, including a list of the members elected to serve on the ASVDH's executive committee and other bodies, Djimi said. When authorities refused to take it or issue a receipt, they sent it by post, return receipt requested.

In June 2005, the month after the ASVDH had held its first meeting, the police raided its makeshift headquarters in El-Ayoun, confiscating photos and documents and questioning its secretary-general, Brahim Sabbar.

On May 25, 2005 the ASVDH brought a case against the local administration at the Administrative Tribunal of Agadir. The court on September 21, 2006 ruled in favor of the ASVDH, declaring the administration's refusal to issue a receipt to be invalid. The court wrote:

The creation of associations, according to [the Law on Associations], is not conditioned on the agreement or the order emanating from administrative authorities. They have no jurisdiction on the matter except after the fact, if they wish to oppose or modify that which they deem to be in violation of the law. In that case, only the courts are empowered to rule on such matters.

Issuing a receipt for the submission of the founding papers is, the court wrote, "an obligation" that the local authorities have "no authority to interpret."[197] This ruling became final when the authorities declined to appeal it to a higher court.

Despite the court ruling, Moroccan authorities continue to treat the ASVDH as "unrecognized." Its members face harassment and trials on charges that include "membership in an unrecognized association." The government rarely prosecutes Sahrawi activists solely on this charge but, rather, adds it to more serious charges.

In November 2007, El-Ayoun's Court of First Instance convicted Sadek Bellahi, a resident of Guelmine who sits on the ASVDH's executive committee, of membership in an unrecognized association, while acquitting him of participating in and inciting illegal demonstrations. The police had arrested him in Guelmine on July 27 of that year and transported him to El-Ayoun, he said, where they held him until July 29. The court sentenced him on the membership charge to six months in prison and a 5000dh (about US$700) fine. He remained free pending his appeals trial, which took place on October 6, 2008. On October 20, 2008, the El-Ayoun Court of Appeals announced its acquittal of Bellahi.

An El-Ayoun court convicted ASVDH Secretary General Brahim Sabbar of membership in an unrecognized association, along with the more serious charges of disobeying and assaulting a police officer, and inciting violence during the 2005-2006 unrest. He spent two years in prison and was freed in June 2008.

In explaining why the police detained ASVDH executive committee member Dahha Rahmouni in December 2007, authorities described him as "a member of an unrecognized association that is in fact a Polisario agency in the southern provinces that seeks to undermine national unity and Moroccan identity and promote separatism."[198]

CODESA

A group of activists, several of them former members of the banned Forum for Truth and Justice–Sahara, sought to create a new human rights association called the Collective of Sahrawi Defenders of Human Rights (Collectif des défenseurs sahraouis des droits de l'homme, CODESA). But authorities blocked them from the outset, preventing them from holding the constitutive assembly they had scheduled for October 7, 2007 at which they were to elect their executive committee.

Authorities have said that they would neither legalize CODESA nor allow it to meet because they considered it to be a branch of the Polisario Front. The legal basis for this refusal, they said, was, first, that CODESA's principles undermine Morocco's "territorial integrity" and, second, that its focus on promoting Sahrawi rights violated the anti-discrimination provisions of Moroccan law:

The ban on organizing a founding assembly of the so-called "Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders" was, in accordance with the Law on Public Gatherings, taken to avoid a possible deterioration in security and to prevent its exploitation as another means to spread separatist propaganda.

….[W] e find that the goal in establishing this association is to "promote the culture of human rights in Western Sahara and Morocco's southern cities and universities that contain students coming from these regions." This constitutes an infraction of the provisions of Article 5 of the royal decree 1.58.376 issued on November 15, 1958, which was revised and expanded upon by law 00.75 regarding the founding of associations.

Given that this association aims to organize and represent a specific segment of Moroccan society while excluding others, not to mention that even its name displays its discriminatory origin, it directly violates the requirements of Article 3 of the above-mentioned royal decree.

Furthermore, Moroccan authorities are preventing the creation of this association due to the obligation to respect the bedrock principles of the nation. This group tries to use the cover of a human rights association to create a political organization connected to the Polisario Front, which aims to compromise national territorial integrity by advocating separatism. It thus violates the requirements of Article 3 of the same royal decree, which states: "Any association is void if it is founded on a cause or has an objective that is illegal, contrary to good morals or that aims to undermine the Islamic religion, the integrity of national territory, or the monarchical regime, or that calls for discrimination."[199]

The governor of El-Ayoun-Boujdour, M'hamed Drif, elaborated on the refusal to legalize CODESA:

The problem with CODESA and the ASVDH is that in their statutes they do not respect the Constitution, which requires that they respect the territorial integrity of Morocco …. They must renounce first of all the literature of the Polisario …. CODESA is merely the extension of Polisario. Two or three months ago, they applied to hold a meeting. It was refused because the documents they presented to the wilaya – a communiqué, a document introducing CODESA, and a third one – completely followed the Polisario line. Considering the law and the Constitution, we just can't. If they present a demand for an organization in conformity with the law, like the AMDH or the OMDH, they will be approved.[200]

Among the government's dubious justifications for rejecting CODESA's bid for legal status is that its objectives violate the ban on discrimination. This is a use of the term "discrimination" that is far removed from its meaning in international law. The ICCPR allows, indeed, in some circumstances requires, restrictions on association for groups that advocate racial hatred, but this must be narrowly defined.[201] To justify the severe interference with freedom of association on these grounds, the authorities would need to provide clear evidence that the associations were engaged in discrimination against non-Sahrawis or in racial hatred or violence.

It is true that the groups such as CODESA and the ASVDH focus on human rights violations where Moroccan authorities are the alleged perpetrators and Sahrawis are the victims. Organizations all over the world choose to focus on certain issues, regions, or particular groups, such as women, children, or the blind. Simply focusing on the human rights of one minority or ethnic group, or on persons who are united by a common political cause is not, in itself, discrimination; nor is it the advocacy of racial hatred.

Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) El-Ayoun Branch

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights, a national, legally recognized, and independent association founded in 1979, is one of Morocco's best-established human rights associations. Its branch in El-Ayoun is legally recognized but subject to various forms of harassment. Police have arrested its president, Hamoud Iguilid, three times since 2005 (see above, The Arbitrary Arrests of Human Rights Activist Hamoud Iguilid). Second, authorities have harassed it administratively. The Associations Law in Article 5 requires that an association promptly inform the authorities in writing when its internal elections produce a turnover in office-holders. When the AMDH tried to submit that notification following its elections in November 2006, the local authorities refused to accept the notification. According to Iguilid, the AMDH's national headquarters had to intervene several times before the local authorities finally summoned the AMDH to give them the receipt, claiming they had never received its declaration.

Iguilid also said that the AMDH had to abandon an office it had rented in El-Ayoun in 2007 after authorities pressured the landlord:

We had signed a lease on a new place in July. We did not move in right away because some renovations needed to be carried out. CODESA approached us and asked if they could hold their founding meeting there in October. We answered yes but on condition that the renovations were completed beforehand.

During this time, the local authorities started threatening the landlord with prosecution for helping separatists and violating the country's territorial integrity. Then one of the neighbors filed a complaint against both the landlord and the AMDH, arguing that the repairs we were doing could endanger the building structurally.

 

The landlord contacted me and said that he couldn't afford to get involved in a legal dispute. He asked me to cancel the lease, explaining that the police had repeated their threats of legal trouble and warned that it would be prudent not to rent to tenants like us. He said he couldn't risk losing his job. So we abandoned the lease even though both parties had signed it.[202]

Instead of moving into and using the office it had rented, the AMDH Sahara section today operates in a more makeshift manner from a room that the Confédération Démocratique du Travail (CDT), a trade union, makes available to it in its El-Ayoun headquarters.

Treatment of Foreign Observers

Moroccan authorities continue to impede the work of foreign journalists and observers who come to follow the Western Sahara question, although less so today than in past years, when they frequently expelled journalists and human rights delegations.

At the airport in El-Ayoun, the police routinely check the identification of passengers arriving on flights from Moroccan cities. They sometimes question foreign passengers about the purpose of their visit, as was the case when a Human Rights Watch researcher landed there in December 2005. (He was allowed to pass without further questions.)

Authorities did not impede the movements of Human Rights Watch researchers on visits to El-Ayoun and Smara in 2005, 2007 and 2008. However, the researchers observed men sitting in unmarked vehicles near the locations of at least two of their meetings with human rights activists, men whom the activists described as police agents. Those men did not confront the researchers or obstruct their movements. However, they created an intimidating atmosphere for the local human rights activists and especially for ordinary citizens who sought to meet the visiting delegation.

Morocco Expels French NGO Human Rights Delegation in April 2008

Moroccan authorities expelled a visiting human rights delegation on April 25, 2008. The group was composed of Frédérique Lellouche, Claude Mangin, Pierre Alain Roussel, and Mireille Brun, all French citizens.

Lellouche is the Middle East-North Africa director of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (Action des Chrétiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture, ACAT France), a private human rights organization that takes no position on Western Saharan independence. The other three belong to Friends of the SADR, a pro-self-determination group. Mangin is also the wife of activist Naâma Asfari (see "Right to a Fair Trial" section above).

After arriving in Morocco April 20, the delegation had observed a session of Asfari's trial on April 21 and met with Sahrawi rights activists and relatives of Sahrawi prisoners. On the morning of April 24, the police in Tantan, a southern Moroccan city north of Western Sahara, stopped them on the street, confiscated their passports, and brought them to the city's central police station for questioning, Lellouche said. According to Lellouche, the police insisted that they were not detaining the four but rather "protecting" them because they had been in contact with "dangerous" individuals. For that reason, the police told them, they should disclose the names of every person they had met since their arrival.[203]

After holding the four late into the evening, the police presented each of them with a written statement to sign summarizing the comments they had made to the police. The police then had the four collect their belongings and drove them overnight to Agadir, where they put them on a flight to Paris the next day, Lellouche said.

Moroccan authorities told Human Rights Watch that the delegation had committed acts "that violated public security when they directly contacted some citizens and encouraged them to organize public and street gatherings and rioting in order to disrupt public security and stability." They added that local authorities followed the laws that permit them to expel foreigners from Morocco when their "presence constitutes a threat to public order."[204] Authorities provided no further details of the threat that the delegation supposedly presented.

Morocco Blocks a Fact-Finding Mission by the European Parliament

The European Parliament's ad hoc delegation for Western Sahara decided to conduct a fact-finding mission to the region in late 2005, after sustained disturbances erupted in the region. Moroccan authorities did not allow the visit to get under way. The chairman of the ad hoc delegation, Ioannis Kasoulides of Cyprus (European People's Party and European Democrats, EPP-ED), said Morocco had refused to allow a visit by the delegation until it replaced some of its members judged to be pro-Polisario.

The European parliamentary delegation rescheduled the mission for October 2006. But in a statement issued on October 4 of that year, Kasoulides announced that, after a year of negotiations with Moroccan authorities, and less than 48 hours before the delegation was to depart for Rabat, the then-president of Morocco's Chamber of Deputies, Abdelouahed Radi (now minister of justice), asked the delegation to postpone its departure. Radi explained that "any report by the delegation of this visit would reflect the positions of the [European Parliament's] Intergroup [on Western Sahara] and the Polisario Front." Kasoulides insisted that Morocco had no right to decide on the composition of the European Parliament's delegation, but the mission was nevertheless put off once again.[205]

The mission was rescheduled for November 2008, but postponed once again over "misunderstandings" between the delegation and the Moroccan side over the schedule of meetings that the visiting delegation would have.[206]

Morocco Briefly Detains Delegation from Trade Union Consortium

On February 19, 2008, police in El-Ayoun detained for questioning a four- member fact-finding delegation from a consortium of French, Italian and Spanish workers unions. They had come to Western Sahara to learn about the human rights situation and the demands of workers formerly employed by Spanish phosphate extraction enterprises during the colonial period.

The police interrupted the delegation's first meeting in El-Ayoun with the former phosphate workers, which was to have taken place at the home of Sidi Ahmed edh-Dhia, a leader of the former workers. The police examined the foreigners' passports, questioned them about the purpose of their visit, and then escorted them to police headquarters. They questioned them for about two hours before releasing them. The police also detained edh-Dhia for questioning that day and again the next day.

The delegation noted in their report that during their visit to Western Sahara from February 17 to 22, "we were 'accompanied' with very little discretion by members of the police or the army who followed us wherever we went."[207]

Press Freedom

The governor of El-Ayoun-Boujdour, M'hamed Drif, showed Human Rights Watch in November 2007 a list of 136 foreign journalists who had visited his province between February 16, 2006 and November 3, 2007, presenting this as evidence that foreign media were free to operate in the region. While Moroccan authorities have interfered less in recent years with the work of foreign journalists in the Sahara, they continue to monitor them closely and incidents continue to occur.

For example, police detained Swedish freelance photographer Lars Björk on February 19, 2007 after he photographed a small pro-Polisario demonstration in El-Ayoun. They then expelled him from the Sahara region, reportedly on the grounds that he lacked Moroccan media accreditation. Björk later said that the police questioned him for several hours and prepared for his signature a statement acknowledging that he had incited the demonstration. He refused to sign.[208]

On March 27, 2008, twelve accredited Spanish correspondents based in Morocco issued a joint statement protesting what they said were pressures that the Moroccan authorities were putting on them. They noted in particular pressures "related to anything having to do with coverage of the Western Sahara conflict." Spain is the only foreign country to have a large number of correspondents based in Morocco. The Spanish media covers Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, more than the media of any other country.

Shortly before the correspondents issued their statement, Morocco's Ministry of Communication had threatened to withdraw the accreditation of COPE radio correspondent Beatriz Mesa, apparently because she had spoken at a roundtable on press coverage of Western Sahara at a conference organized by a group deemed pro-Polisario.[209] Morocco did not withdraw Mesa's accreditation. However, one of the signatories of the March statement, Luis de Vega of ABC daily, told Human Rights Watch in July 2008 that the overall situation remained the same. He noted, "Moroccan authorities continue to require that journalists wishing to report from Western Sahara provide them in advance of the details of their trips, including where they will be on which dates and the subjects they intend to cover."[210]

Another reminder of the limits to reporting on the Western Sahara conflict is the ten-year ban on practicing journalism that a Moroccan court imposed in April 2005 on Ali Lmrabet, a Moroccan journalist working for El Mundo, a Spanish daily. The court convicted Lmrabet of libeling an obscure nongovernmental association because, in a broadcast interview, he characterized the Sahrawis living in the Polisario-run camps in Tindouf, Algeria as refugees, contradicting the Moroccan official line that they are "captives" of the Polisario. This was the first time in recent memory that courts had imposed this punishment, found in Article 87 of the Penal Code, against a journalist. Article 87 allows this punishment if there are "strong grounds to believe that if [the defendant] were to continue practicing that profession … he would pose a danger to public security, health, morality, or resources." Lmrabet remains under the ban, which deprives him of accreditation but does not prevent him from filing stories.

The conflict over Western Sahara remains one of the issues for which Moroccan media face red lines and on which they engage in self-censorship to varying degrees. The two Moroccan national television channels and other official media do not deviate from the official view of the conflict, and do not put persons on the air to speak in favor of self-determination or against Moroccan authority over the region. They might allow criticism of details of the autonomy plan but not its rejection. Only a few of the privately-owned dailies and weeklies give space to the views of Sahrawis who support the Polisario, independence, or a referendum that includes independence as an option.

A state-run regional television channel, TV Laâyoune, launched in 2004, has won many Sahrawi viewers because of its Sahrawi cultural programming and coverage of local news. On the larger political questions, the station faces sharp limits to what it can broadcast. TV Laâyoune's director, Eddah Mohamed Laghdaf, said the station cannot air comments to the effect that Western Sahara is not part of Morocco or that the Polisario is the sole representative of the Sahrawi people. In practice, it denies any airtime to Sahrawis who speak in favor of independence and severely limits coverage of pro-independence rallies and disturbances and allegations of abuses committed by the authorities against Sahrawi activists.

Laghdaf said that TV Laâyoune has solicited on-the-air comments from pro-independence Sahrawis but they spurned the invitations.[211] For their part, Sahrawi activists told Human Rights Watch that they do not object to speaking on the station, on condition that they appear live or that the editing process preserves the meaning of their comments. The station has never accepted this condition, they said.[212]