Geneva (Switzerland), August 18, 2026 (SPS) – The United Nations Committee against Torture has concluded that Morocco violated the Convention against Torture in the case of Sahrawi human rights defender Abdelmoula El Hafidi, in connection with the conditions of his detention in Aït Melloul Prison.
The Committee found that those conditions amounted to degrading treatment and called on the Moroccan authorities to take measures to provide redress and ensure that such violations do not recur.
This was stated in a decision adopted by the Committee on April 24, 2026, during its 84th session, concerning a complaint submitted by El Hafidi, represented by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). The complaint addressed the conditions of his detention and the violations he said he had suffered since his arrest in 2016 in the city of Boujdour, Western Sahara.
The Committee clearly affirmed that the conditions of El Hafidi’s detention in Aït Melloul Prison—including overcrowding, the absence of windows, natural light and ventilation, inadequate heating, and insufficient access to safe drinking water and sanitary facilities—taken together, constituted degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the Convention against Torture.
The Committee also concluded that Morocco had failed to fulfill its obligations under Article 13 of the Convention, after the authorities failed to ensure a prompt, impartial and effective investigation into complaints concerning the conditions of detention, thereby safeguarding the right to lodge complaints and obtain redress.
El Hafidi was arrested on April 16, 2016, in Boujdour and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison in connection with a case related to protests on a university campus in Marrakesh. The sentence was upheld on appeal in April 2018 and subsequently by the Court of Cassation in April 2019.
El Hafidi’s case comes in the context of what the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) and the League for the Protection of Sahrawi Prisoners in Moroccan Prisons (LPPS) described in a joint statement as a “broader pattern of repression” targeting Sahrawi human rights defenders because of their peaceful activities in support of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. In a decision issued in 2019, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had concluded that El Hafidi’s deprivation of liberty was arbitrary.
The two organizations said that the Committee against Torture’s decision “confirms the daily reality faced by Sahrawi prisoners detained because of their views and positions,” noting that degrading prison conditions, isolation and denial of medical care have been used as means of punishment against defenders of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.
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