Sentencing of Three Political Prisoners in El-Ayoune, Mohamed Tahlil starts hunger-strike

28 Nov 2007 | Political Prisoners

El-Ayoune – Western Sahara

Three Saharawi political detainees have appeared today, Wednesday, November 28, 2007, before the court of first degree in El-Ayoune. Mr. Khellihenna DLEIMI, Mr. Mouloud BARKOUH, and Mr. Hamid BARKOUH (supported by a group of Sahrawi lawyers and two Spanish observers, Ms. Urpi Rodriguez LOSADA and Mr. Bruno Armas DOMINGUEZ) were condemned to sentences ranging from one year to a year and six month. Mr. Khellihenna DLEIMI was sentenced to one year, Mr. Mouloud BARKOUH one year, and Mr. Hamid BARKOUH a year and a six month.

In this context, the chairman of the Local Committee of ASVDH in Boujdour, Mr. Mohamed TAHLIL (pictured), was informed yesterday, Tuesday, November 27, 2007, by the director of prison about a second trial against him under the charge of destroying public property. The date for this trial has been set for December 3rd, 2007. In response to this new trial and the bad treatment he was subjected to inside the prison, Mr. TAHLIL has decided to carry out an unlimited hunger strike starting today, Wednesday, November 28, 2007, to denounce the prison directors’ inhuman behaviour against him and to demand his rights as a political prisoner, including the right to visits, which he has been deprived since his incarceration. We recall that Mr. TAHLIL will appear on 4 December 2007 in front of the appeals court for his sentence of three years by the court of first degree (Wednesday, September 19, 2007), stemming from false charges — “burning in public goods, establishment of a criminal gang and having burned a police officer.”

Mr. TAHLIL was arrested on Monday July 16, 2007, while travelling back from Mauritania, at the post control on the border Mauritania-Western Sahara, and was led to the police station in Dakhla, after having beaten him and cuffed his hands in public without any offence. Also, Mr. TAHLIL was taken into custody on Tuesday April 17, 2007, detained at a check-point into El-Ayoune by a group of Moroccan policeman, among them, a Mr. AZIZ (called Touhima, a senior police officer) and Mr. ELKAMOURI (another senior police officer) before being expelled from the city on the 18th of the same month. Mr. TAHLIL was also arrested on 13 August 2005, condemned to 3 years of prison. This sentence was confirmed in appeal on 25 January 2006; he was released on 22 April 2006. He was again arrested, tortured and abandoned in the desert, 50 kms far from the town of Boujdour, on 30 April 2006. On 11 August 2006, the Moroccan authorities in Boujdoour had refused to grant him his passport. On 11 October 2006, Mr. TAHLIL was arrested and questioned for 4 hours at the Mauritanian border at the time of his return from Nouadhibou; he was then arrested a second time at 40 km far from Dakhla. He was detained in the station police for 24 hours, and was insulted and beaten. His personal effects included a mobile phone and 2000 dirhams, which were confiscated.