Arrest and torture of a young Sahrawi

04 Apr 2008 | Testimony

El-Ayoune – Western Sahara

On Thursday, March 27, 2008, a sit-in in favour of self-determination was organized by a group of young Sahrawis in the Almatar district in El-Ayoune. The sit-in was brutally repressed. Since then, the Moroccan police launched a wave of arrests against demonstrators. To this end a number of Sahrawi youth had been arrested and tortured in the Wilaya of National Security of El-Ayoune.

Among these youths, Mr. Bullahi Mohamed Bachri, born on October 8, 1990, who was arrested on Thursday, March 27, 2008, around 20:00 GMT, and who was brutally tortured in the Wilaya of the security of El-Ayoune for four hours before being freed to 30 minutes after midnight.

Mr. Bullahi presented his testimony as follows:

Name: Mohamed Bachiri Bullahi
Birth date: Oct. 10, 1990
School Level: 3rd preparatory year.
We participated, I and several other young Sahrawi, in a sit-in organized on Thursday, March 27, 2008, at the district Almatar. During the sit-in we shouted slogans calling for the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and Sahrawi flags were erected. The sit-in lasted a few minutes before the police intervention. The crowd dispersed and we were hiding in a house. Several civilians were arrested during the brutal police intervention. When I and two other friends have left the house where we hide, plainclothes police officers arrested us and took us first to the police station at the district Almatar then to the Wilaya of the security of El-Ayoune, in a police car ‘Renault’, under beatings and insults.

When we arrived at the Wilaya, the police blindfolded me and started to knock my head against the wall until my nose bleeds. After then they took me on the floor and began hitting me on my buttocks. Then they handcuffed my hands behind my back and tied my feet and put a stick between my legs, and suspended me between two desks. They then started to hit me on my feet and ask me if I participated in the sit-in but I denied. So they changed my position by tying my hands in front and my feet and spent the same stick in my arms and knees and suspended me between the two desks. Then they put a rag on my face and poured water mixed with urine on my face. They told me: “when you want to tell us something move your finger so that we quit torturing you.” They also questioned me about who gives us money and helps us, but I told them that I had nothing to do with all this. We remained in this position until midnight and then they released us.

My friends who were arrested with me are:
Najib AGHELASSE, born in 1988
Fadali Ouled ELBANNANI, born in 1990, a baccalaureate student