Paris/Naples/Occupied AAiun- 26 May 2026 (SPS) – A joint human rights statement issued by the League for the Protection of Sahrawi Political Prisoners in Moroccan Prisons, along with several lawyers and international human rights organizations, affirmed that the UN Committee Against Torture concluded in recent decisions that the Moroccan authorities used torture and ill-treatment against a number of Sahrawi detainees, particularly members of the Gdeim Izik group, and extracted confessions from them that were later used as the basis for their convictions.
The statement explained that the case dates back to November 2010, when Moroccan forces violently dismantled the “Gdeim Izik” camp near the city of Aaiun, leading to violent clashes between Sahrawi demonstrators and Moroccan security forces of occupation. This was followed by a broad wave of arrests targeting Sahrawi activists who were tried before a Moroccan military court before harsh sentences were upheld against them.
The signatories stressed that some detainees have remained in arbitrary detention for more than fifteen years under harsh conditions, noting that the prisoners were subjected during interrogation periods to abduction and torture inside facilities run by the Moroccan gendarmerie and military, in addition to Salé 1 and Salé 2 prisons.
According to the statement, complaints filed by Sahrawi, French, Italian, and Swiss lawyers and human rights organizations had previously resulted in six UN decisions condemning Morocco over practices related to torture. In 2022, four new complaints were also submitted concerning clear Moroccan violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
The statement noted that after examining the submitted files, the UN Committee Against Torture issued decisions concerning detainees Hassan Daddah, Ahmed Sbaai, Mohamed Lamin Haddi, and Sidi Ahmed Lemjeyid, concluding that the confessions on which the judicial rulings were based had been extracted under torture and that the Moroccan authorities had failed to open independent and effective investigations into those allegations.
The signatory organizations considered these decisions to constitute a “clear legal condemnation” of Morocco and to confirm the existence of a “recurrent pattern” of arbitrary arrests, torture, and solitary confinement against Sahrawi political prisoners, in addition to the judiciary’s reliance on disputed confessions and reports of questionable legality.
The statement further emphasized that, for the tenth time in similar cases, the Committee Against Torture had highlighted serious institutional failings, particularly regarding the failure to comply with the Istanbul Protocol on the investigation of torture allegations, despite the existence of physical evidence and repeated testimonies from detainees.
According to the authors of the statement, the latest decisions undermine the credibility of the trials related to the Gdeim Izik case, especially since part of the proceedings took place before a military court despite the defendants being civilians, which they considered contrary to international fair trial standards.
Politically, the statement argued that these developments come at a time of increasing international scrutiny of the human rights situation in Western Sahara and reveal a “contradiction” between Morocco’s international commitments and the practices criticized by UN mechanisms.
The signatories called for independent and immediate investigations into all allegations of torture, the annulment of verdicts based on disputed confessions, and the release of all Gdeim Izik detainees. They also demanded guarantees for detainees’ access to lawyers, doctors, and families, as well as the alignment of Morocco’s judicial and security systems with international human rights obligations.
The statement concluded by stressing that the decisions of the UN Committee Against Torture represent an “important legal and political turning point” in the international handling of the Gdeim Izik detainees’ case and reaffirm that combating impunity and protecting fundamental rights remain at the core of contemporary international law.
The statement was signed by the League for the Protection of Sahrawi Political Prisoners in Moroccan Prisons, lawyers Françoise Weil, Joseph Breham, and Francesca Doria, as well as the organizations Friends of the Sahrawi Republic in France and ACAT-France. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)
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