NGOs, Politicians denounce Polisario’s arbitrary detention of Sahrawi activists
Several NGOs and politicians have joined the families of the three Sahrawi activists arbitrarily detained by the Polisario since last June.
In this connection, the Sahrawi Khat Shahid movement “the Line of the Martyr” addressed a letter to the United Nations, urging the world body to intervene to end Polisario’s violations and arbitrary detention of Sahrawi activists.
The letter, relayed by several local media outlets, condemns the arrest of three Sahrawi activists, Moulay Abbas Bouzid, Fadel Breika and Mahmud Zeidan, who were arrested by the Polisario while they were participating in a demonstration in June.
Fifty days after their arrest, no official charges have been brought against them.
The letter called on the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to save the detained Sahrawis, adding that the Polisario carried out the crackdown without informing the detainees of why they were being arrested.
The whereabouts of the activists and other members of the opposition who were also captured remained unknown for weeks, before the media revealed that they were accused of belonging to a spy cell and held in Dhaibiya prison in “tiny individual rotten cells with nauseating odors.”
In the letter, Khat Shahid movement recalled that the activists have been carrying out a hunger strike to protest their arbitrary detention.
The letter also quoted Moulay Abbas Bouzid as saying in a leaked recording that the activists would continue their hunger strike until death if they were not released.
Pro-Polisario news outlet Futuro Sahara reported lately that Mahmud Zeidan and Bouzid were hospitalized on August 5, as their health deteriorated due to their hunger strike.
The letter to the UN warned that Algeria is to blame for the arrest and detention of the activists, who “were kidnapped, tortured and thrown into small cells in a land where temperatures exceed 54 degrees,” just for having denounced corruption and the lack of democracy of the Polisario leadership.
Relatedly, a Mexican MP from the Party of Democratic Revolution has expressed his concerns about the detention of Sahrawi activists in a letter he addressed to the Algerian ambassador to Mexico, reported the news outlet Morocco world News.
The news outlet quoted Futuro Sahara as reporting that the Mexican parliamentarian Antonio Ortega Martinez has strongly denounced the ongoing detention of three Sahrawi activists.
Martinez expressed frustration about the abuse and arbitrary measures taken against the three detainees during interrogation.
Despite the protests and condemnations, the Polisario Front has remained silent on the case of the jailed activists, as well as on the disappearance of a leading Polisario member, Ahmed El Khalil, says Morocco World News.
Ahmed El Khalil has been missing for nearly 10 years. Algerian intelligence services and Polisario arrested him in 2009 after he was appointed to monitor human rights in the Polisario-run Tindouf camps.
