The case of Amaydane el-Ouali

I mentioned in passing in the last post, that eleven Sahrawi protesters have been sentenced to prison as of late. There's a lot of that: one N. ould N. was sentenced to so-and-so many years in prison, and his mother tortured for so-and-so many hours to implicate him in "separatism". But rarely, we see the people behind those news.

So, for once, let's consider the case of one of them: Amaydane el-Ouali, prisoner no. 27771.

Amaydane is young, a kid really. He's 21 years old, and can hardly have any recollections of the war between Morocco and Polisario, which ended in 1991. He would have been four or five years old, when the guns fell silent around his hometown of El Aaiún.

Growing up, he did not encounter much pro-Polisario propaganda, and any and all open Sahrawi dissent was harshly discouraged. Activists of the generation before him were serving long penalties for peaceful protest, horror stories making the rounds about the treatment they faced. In 1992, for example, a 22-year old girl from Smara named Kelthoum was sentenced on forced testimony to 20 years in prison, for handing out leaflets against the occupation. In custody, writes Amnesty International, she had been "held in secret detention, completely cut off from the outside world and without access to her family, lawyers or medical care for 10 months, during which she was allegedly beaten, tortured and sexually abused". A few years later, Amnesty notes similar sentences for youths in their late teens, who had been manifesting peacefully for the right to self-determination. Many others went unreported.

That was the environment Amaydane grew up in. It was some sort of progress, of course: up until the late 1980s, questioning the official line of the Sahara's "Moroccanness" meant, quite simply, death. There would have been no trial, no accusations: there would have been a long jeep drive out into the desert, a bullet in the back of your head, and a shallow grave. And there would have been a discreet message to the family, that for whomever wanted to enquire into your fate, there was plenty of room under the sand for a family grave.

Those things weren't happening any more in the 1990s. People would still be killed, of course, but they were exceptions. More commonly, dissidents were just beaten, tortured and threatened, and, occasionally, sentenced to a couple of decades in prison. From the late 90s, and with king Muhammad VI on the throne from 1999, things started to change more dramatically. The liberalization in Western Sahara was never even near what happened in Morocco, and Western Sahara remains as harshly repressed as, say, Libya, whereas Morocco proper has moved to become one of the less awful states in the Maghreb on human rights issues. But still -- there was progress. Activists were cut some slack, and they took it and ran.

In 1999 -- Amaydane would have been 12 or 13 -- Sahrawi demonstrations erupted in Smara and El Aaiún. They began as social protests, with demands for jobs and fair treatment, but with so many Sahrawis gathered in anti-government manifestations for the first time in years, they quickly escalated into nationalist agitation, and then tit-for-tat stonethrowing violence with the police. The riots were put down quickly and brutally, but for the first time in more than two decades, the independence flag had been flying openly over Western Sahara, and the repressed grievances of a generation burst out into the open. With tens of thousands of ethnic Sahrawi Moroccans forcibly deported south by their government in 1991, to bolster voter rolls in advance of the referendum, and left ever since in squalid camps around El Aaiún, the territory teemed with frustration, poverty and an emergent youth radicalism. The Moroccan army presence was still heavy, with some 150,000 soldiers in the territory, and security services were pervasive, but that, and the exactions and corruption by pro-regime (often non-Sahrawi) settlers installed in positions of economic and political power, only served to widen the gulf between Sahrawis and Moroccans.

This, too, was the environment Amaydane grew up in. And when protest came echoing back time after time, with a resurgent Sahrawi nationalism rising high, he joined in. He is educated in electrical engineering, but probably -- like most young Sahrawis -- unemployed, so like any young man, itching for action. He becomes active in pro-independence activities, especially following the May 2005 unrest, that the Sahrawis call their Intifada of Independence.

He is first arrested in August, in El Aaiún -- where shout-and-run protest continues under the boot of thousands of security reinforcement personnel -- and he is interrogated on his participation in demonstrations. After spending months in detention, he is called to scrutiny before the judge on December 14, 2005, along with among others, Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek. By then, he has been injured in the leg. Foreign observers are present, and note him saying that he resents being judged for his opinions, that he is working peacefully for his beliefs, and that he is in favor of Western Sahara's self-determination and eventual independence. He refuses to recognize the signed statements that are used to convict him, and say that they were extracted through torture. In January 2006, his sentence is determined to 12 months in prison, which he serves together with the veteran activists. He joins CODESA, the banned human rights group, and is shown in fotographs chumming with independence icons in their cells -- as if more proof was needed that Moroccan prisons in the territory have turned into veritable academies for Sahrawi nationalism. But it's a tough time, and complaints of abuse at the hands of prison guards seep out via smuggled messages and through family visits all the time. Along with tens of other detainees, Amaydane goes on a hunger strike, and is hospitalized. The authorities chain him to his hospital bed, where he is force-fed to survive. In March 25, 2006, the Moroccan king visits Western Sahara, and Amaydane and many other inmates are pardoned and released to celebrate the event.

In May the same year, the United Nations' human rights commissariat, the OHCHR, visits Western Sahara for the first time in its history. Amaydane is among the activists who sneak past the security cordon and manages to get to the hotel where the delegation -- inexplicably -- stays holed up for the whole duration of the visit. In its report, the OHCHR notes that it

met with lawyers and some of the above mentioned prisoners who had been pardoned by the King in March and April 2006. They raised serious concerns about the fairness of the trial, including the fact that convictions were based exclusively on confessions by the defendants in written police statements. In these statements, defendants implicated themselves in provoking and committing violent acts. Defendants interviewed by the delegation claimed that these confessions had been fabricated and two of them had been extracted under duress, but were nevertheless used during the trial as evidence. Defendants declared their innocence on all charges related to violent disturbances during the trial proceedings. They claimed that they had been advocating peacefully for the right to self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. They consider that the lawsuit against them was of a purely political character, related to their activities in documenting events in Western Sahara, expressing their views on the right to self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, and disseminating this information internationally, including to international human rights organizations, as well as OHCHR.

Perhaps as punishment, on an evening two months later, June 9, 2006, Amaydane is again arrested, together with Hammadi el-Karcha, another of the amnestied political prisoners. They are held at a police station, where they are severely beaten by Moroccan security personnel, until finally released without being charged of any crime, two hours after midnight.

Then again, in early evening August 12, 2006, he and a friend, Jamal el-Hosseini, are stopped by Moroccan special police (the GUS) in El Aaiún. They are driven out in the desert, where the cars team up with agents from the DST, the secret service, and continue further out in the wilderness. The two Sahrawis are relentlessly beaten the whole time, as is evident from photographs of their injuries. They are threatened with a knife by one of the policemen, and told that they should get out of Western Sahara as soon as they could. In the end, they are left naked and wounded, in the desert at night, to find their way back home. Demonstrations by relatives are held in El Aaiún, at which the mothers of both Amaydane and Jamal are said to have been beaten.

Two months later, he's arrested again. The house of his 90-year old relative Mohamed Embarek Amaydane is encircled by some 30 cars from different police units, Sahrawis say, and Amaydane and other members of their family are taken -- but first beaten and roughed up in front of the family, to drive the point home. The house is "searched", smashed up and left in shambles.

On October 15, 2006, Amaydane is brought in front of the judge, then in a miserable state after three days in custody. He is sent to Lekhal, the Black Prison, as it has been called ever since Spanish days, where he remains. He describes physical torture as well psychological, and hearing his fellow inmates screaming in the cells next to his. His trial is repeatedly postponed. When summoned to the courtroom on March 20, he and co-prisoner Bachri ben Taleb refuse to co-operate and instead start shouting the Sahrawi nationalist slogan la badil, la badil, an taqrir al-masir, or "no alternative, no alternative, to self-determination". But yesterday, the verdict fell.

Amaydane will be spending five years behind bars, if there isn't another royal pardon, or, for that matter, a presidential pardon. That means he'll be 26 when he gets out. Meantime, the diplomatic machinery churns and turns and creaks, trying to transform Amaydane, and all the other thousands of Sahrawis who have passed through the gates of the Black Prison, into someone who'll say he's proud to be Moroccan.

I'm not sure they've realised what they're up against.

[pictures: amaydane el-ouali, photographs by friends, family members and activists.]

UPDATE: here.