The Saharawi activist Leila Leili was on 10 February pulled by her hair by Moroccan police when she was demonstrating for the UN to report on human rights violations.
The demonstration in El Aaiún on 10 February was organised by a group of human rights defenders. They demanded the liberation of political prisoners and the inclusion of a human rights mandate for the UN operation MINURSO.
The demonstration only lasted for a few minutes before Moroccan police, as always, attacked the demonstrators with violence, leading to several injured. Leila Leili was one of those that the police apprehended. The episode was caught by a video film posted on Youtube this week. The video shows Leila pulled along the street by her hair by civilian dressed police oficers, while another civilian dressed policeman kicked her.
MINURSO is the only modern UN operation without a mandate to report on human rights violations they are witness to. Morocco's main ally in the UN Security Council, every year refuses to allow human rights being part of the operation's work task.
In a statement published last week, eight UN Special Rapporteurs have denounced Morocco’s ongoing campaign of repression, racial discrimination, and violence against Sahrawi human rights defenders, journalists, and advocates for self-determination, covering 79 victims as reference cases.
In a decision published yesterday, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concludes that the detention of the Saharawi student and human rights defender Al-Hussein Al-Bachir Ibrahim is arbitrary. The UN Working Group called on Morocco to immediately release him from the deplorable prison conditions.
Two more Norwegians, who travelled to occupied Western Sahara to learn about Morocco’s controversial energy projects in the territory, were detained by Moroccan police this afternoon and deported.
Today, 25 Moroccan police officers showed up to expel two Norwegians from occupied Western Sahara. The two had traveled to learn what the Sahrawis think about Morocco's controversial renewable energy projects on occupied land.