Brahim Ismaili
Brahim Ismaili is a human rights defender who was born in 1970. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Appeals Court in Salé in 2017. Brahim Ismaili is the president of the Centre for Preservation of the Collective Sahrawi memory. This is not the first time that Brahim Ismaili is in jail for his political views. In 1987, the human rights defender was abducted and was subsequently kept in a secret detention centre for several months. Brahim Ismaili was arrested on 9 November 2010 in his house in the Zemla neighbourhood, in the presence of his wife Alfan and two of their four children. He was taken to Lakhal prison in Laayoune. After 7 months, on 13 May 2011, Brahim Ismaili was released together with other Sahrawis. However, just outside of the prison gates, the police arrested him again and drove him to Salé prison, 1,200 kilometres deep into north Morocco. The human rights defender claims to have signed the declarations and confessions under torture, and that he was not present in the camp on the day it was dismantled.
The issue of the status of Western Sahara remains unresolved, despite ongoing negotiations between the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario Front. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), established in 1991, has been extended but continues to have no human rights monitoring component. The dispute over self determination created deep political and security related tensions throughout the Sahara area and affects all aspects of life, including the work of human rights defenders.
Sahrawi human rights defenders continued to be subjected to intimidation, harassment, questioning, arrest, incommunicado detention, and unfair trials.
The right to freedom of assembly remains severely restricted. Permission to hold public gatherings is often denied and demonstrations dispersed by force. Participants, including human rights defenders, have been beaten, arrested or otherwise intimidated.
