“Out with Morocco. Freedom for Western Sahara!”. This cry that a young Saharawi uttered in El Ayoun to the questions of a Spanish tourist who recorded him on video has cost him dearly. Hours later, the 27-year-old boy denounced that he was kidnapped by Moroccan gendarmes and subjected to torture.
The victim is called Abdel Tawab Salek Ambarek -Abdo for friends-. She met the young Spaniard at the El Aaiún bus station. He published the video on Tik Tok, on the 17th, without knowing the fatal consequences that he was going to have. According to what he denounced to the NGO Colectivo Saharaui de Defensores de los Derechos Humanos (Codesa), five police officers approached him on the night of April 20 at the station and forced him into a police car. He was beginning his nightmare.
“His hands were tied behind his back and a piece of black cloth was placed across his face, before he was taken to an unknown destination, where he was put in another car where he was subjected to physical and verbal torture and death threats. burning him with acid if he continued to declare his position on the Western Sahara issue to any foreigner,” says the organization, chaired by veteran activist Aminetu Haidar.
Ambarek himself recounts his ordeal in statements to which EL MUNDO has had access through activists: “They took me in a car for about 10 minutes and handed me over to others (…). They changed me to another car in which there were a couple of men who hit in a way so that later there would be no mark. Like, for example, slapping on the face, on the back they hit in the lower area so that there would be no mark (…). And in that car They took me to another place. On the way they told me that they were going to burn me with gasoline, that the Sahara is Moroccan and they kept hitting me. When I got out of the car they all spat on me and took my wallet in which I had 1,000 dirham. they broke my cell phone saying ‘so you don’t take pictures with the Sahara’. And they directly threatened me saying that if I do anything else, I’ll disappear at any moment. At that very moment they started the car and left. They left me in the middle of nothing”.
“The Saharawi victim was tortured and beaten for 15 minutes,” they denounce from Codesa. Afterwards, he was expelled towards the D’chira area (about 23.5 kilometers northeast of El Aaiún, the capital of Western Sahara). After several hours of walking in the middle of the night, Ambarek was able to reach his house again. “When I saw my mother, who had been told that she had probably died, she was very scared,” admits the young man.
“When he arrived, he found a police car parked near his family’s house, which watched him for several hours, only to be surprised the next day when they confiscated his right to return to his place of work at the El Aaiún bus station. “adds Codesa.
The Spanish tiktoker -embarked on a journey that takes him from Spain to the Holy Land that he narrates on his social network- re-uploaded a new video showing solidarity with Ambarek after learning about his situation. “Through messages I have received that he is locked up and that they have taken him to jail. Honestly, if that is the case, I hope not because it would seem very bad to me that, for saying what he thinks, a person in no part of the world has to be lock up,” he declares. “I hope you’re okay, buddy,” he adds.
The fallout for Ambarek has continued. He claims that the police prevent him from working at the bus station in his city. “Since the incident I can no longer lead a normal life. They watch me everywhere,” explains Ambarek.
Morocco occupied Western Sahara in 1975, when Spain withdrew from what was then its 53rd province in an unfinished decolonization process. A war broke out and tens of thousands of Saharawi civilians fled into the desert to escape the conflict and took refuge in the Tindouf camps on Algerian soil. Dependent on international aid, there are still between 175,000 and 300,000 refugees there today, according to various sources. At the same time, thousands of Sahrawis remained in the occupied territory, where today they are a minority harassed by Moroccan repression. In the territory there is no freedom of expression and pro-independence proclamations are punished.
On March 18, 2022, the Government of Pedro Sánchez gave a historic turn to Spain’s position on the territory -until now aligned with the United Nations in the search for a political solution between the parties through a self-determination referendum- to align with the Alaouite kingdom and declare that autonomy within Morocco is “the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving the dispute”. The United States had unilaterally recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory in December 2020, contrary to UN dictates.
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