Testimony of a Sahrawi citizen

24/03/2007 | Testimony

Full name: Hussein Ould Mohamed Salem Ould Rguibi ALHIRI
Date of birth: May 25, 1984
Profession: none
Date of aggression: Friday, March 23, 2007, at nine p.m.

I was detained on Friday March 23, 2007, close to the school Khalid Ben Alwalid, by an agent in plainclothes, who asked me to accompany him. And when I refused, he told that he was an agent of security and he contacted through his mobile phone other other security agents who joined us, in a car of the type “Kangu”, in the avenue of Alforsan.

When the car arrived close to us, the policeman hit me on my face and strongly hit me on my mouth until it bled. The severity of the pain incited me to push the man who forced me to enter into the car, inside of which were five security agents in plainclothes and three in uniforms. Then they covered my eyes and went outside the city.

Once there, one of them took an electric cable while the second took a bludgeon, and started to beat me. After one moment a man had arrived, I think that he was the guard of the buildings, and he asked them: What do you doing to the child? Thus they ceased torturing me and led me to the car, which started in the direction of the police station in the Smara Avenue.

There, one of the investigators told to me that I will be prosecuted for aggression against the security man who arrested me. I said to him: it is me who has the right to judicial pursuit against five security men who tortured me outside the city. The interrogations related to the flags and slogans hostile to the Moroccan occupation [of Western Sahara] written on the walls. My answer was that I do not know anything and that I do not have any relationship with the subject or with those who were responsible.

I was released around midnight.