Polisario’s violation of prisoners’ rights under media scrutiny

The Polisario separatist group, has set up prisons within Algerian territory where prisoners endure all sorts of degrading treatment and human rights violations, a local media reported in an investigative report.

The Edhibia prison was taken as a case study by a pro-Polisario media outlet, Futuro Sahara, which criticized the serious human rights abuses in the jail and uncovered the cruelty and inhumane treatment endured by Sahraouis within the Algerian territory.

Actually, the Algerian regime has abandoned thousands of people to the mercy of a separatist group with zero tolerance towards dissidents or free speech.

Recently, protests have erupted in the camps after three Sahraouis were arrested for their support to the autonomy plan put forward by Morocco as a lasting solution to the conflict over the Sahara region.

The three vocal critics of the Polisario, Moulay Abba Bouzid, Fadel El Mehdi Breica, and Mahmoud Zeidane, were kidnapped and tossed in jail for more than two months without indictment.

After their whereabouts remained unknown for some time, it later emerged that they were detained in Edhibia prison.

The Edhibia prison, “one of the dirtiest and ugliest prisons in north Africa,” as the media outlet calls it, gained notoriety for the torture inflicted on prisoners.

Polisario’s deplorable human rights record was decried on multiple occasions this year by international watchdogs including Human Rights Watch which denounced last summer the violent crackdown on dissidents in the Tindouf camp.