The Moroccan representative to the UN, Omar Hilale, assured Monday that the Saharawi prisoners of the Gdeim Izik group, detained since 2010, are treated in a «dignified and respectful» manner, despite the existing complaints of torture and unjustified detention before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
«They benefit from health care, television, landline telephone and the right to study and receive family visits,» he specified, adding also that the detainees are not on hunger strike, an information that has been passed on «to put pressure on Morocco.»
In this sense, he recalled that the «propaganda» of the detainees cannot obscure «the essence of their crimes and of the victims who lost their lives». «These detainees have committed barbaric acts against the Moroccan Police. There were eleven dead and 158 wounded, some of whom remain disabled for life,» he has recalled.
A total of 23 Saharawis were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years to life imprisonment for the so-called Gdeim Izik case, the name of the protest camp set up in 2010 on the outskirts of Laayoune and forcibly dismantled by the Moroccan authorities.
The group had previously lodged four complaints of torture against the Moroccan authorities with the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva in early June, alleging «acts of torture» and «political repression» against them.
Morocco was condemned in 2016 by the Committee for the torture suffered by Naâma Asfari, Saharawi human rights defender and one of the spokespersons of the Gdeim Izik camp. In November 2021, Morocco was again condemned for torture inflicted on three other Saharawi detainees.
At least 14 people were killed – 13 Moroccan policemen and three Saharawi civilians – during the violent eviction of the protest camp set up by the Saharawis in 2010 on the outskirts of El Aaiun in what is considered one of the first milestones of the Arab Spring.
ON CHILD SOLDIERS On the other hand, Hilale took advantage of his appearance to accuse Algeria of not having questioned the photographs which prove «without ambiguity» the alleged recruitment of child soldiers «on its own territory», referring to the Saharawi camps of Tindouf.
«If Algeria and the Polisario persist in denying the recruitment of children in these camps, they have only to invite Virginia Gamba, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, to visit the camps on condition that she speaks with these children and their parents face to face and without the presence of the separatists», he stressed.
