Western Sahara: Alleged enforced disappearance of human rights defender, Ms Sukeina Idrissi

On 1 October 2009 at 11.45am, human rights defender Ms Sukeina Idrissi, a member of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Violations of Human Rights (ASVDH) was kidnapped, reportedly by the police. Her whereabouts are unknown and the police deny that she has been arrested.

Further Information

ASVDH is a Sahrawi human rights organisation based in Western Sahara, which monitors and documents violence and human rights abuses, and campaigns for an end to impunity. Sukeina Idrissi is also president of the Forum Future for Sahrawi Women (FAFESA). In December 2008, Soukaina El Idrissi attended as a speaker the International Conference on Human Rights in the Western Sahara, in Malaga, Spain.

Front Line has previously reported on the detentions, ill-treatment and alleged assaults of other members of both ASVDH and FAFESA on 31 August 2009.

At 11.30am on 1 October 2009, Sukeina Idrissi, accompanied by two other Sahrawi women, one of whom was Ms Engiya Boukhers of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Smara, attempted to travel from the city of El Ayoun, where they had attended a trial of three Sahrawi detainees on 30 September 2009, to Bojador by car. They were intercepted by various police forces and by the secret police, who ordered the three women to present their official documentation and then took Sukeina Idrissi from the car, declaring that there were direct orders from the Ministry of the Interior of Morocco to detain her. They then reportedly beat her and forcibly pushed her into a patrol car of the secret police.

The two women who were accompanying Sukeina Idrissi attempted to locate her whereabouts and the reasons for her detention but did not receive any response from the police. The Central Police Station of El Ayoun later declared that Sukeina Idrissi was not within their custody and had not been detained there. The State Lawyer, representing the Moroccan King, Gendarmerie, police, national security forces, military and judiciary strenuously denied that Sukeina Idrissi was detained, and stated that “it is a question that comes from above” ("es una cuestión que viene de arriba"). According to the Sahrawi Collective of Human Rights Defenders (CODESA), a police officer in Smara said that the arrest of Soukaina Idrissi was an execution of an order issued against her many years ago. No explanation was given on the nature or subject of that order. According to the source, the authorities at Mohammed IIV Airport in Casablanca had previously used the pretext to interrogate Soukaina Idrissi for many hours when she was leaving for Algeria to attend the Second African Assembly on 2-4 July 2009.

Front Line believes that the alleged enforced disappearance of Sukeina Idrissi is directly related to her legitimate work in the defence of human rights, in particular due to her work with ASVDH in documenting human rights abuses in Morocco-administrated Western Sahara, and with FAFESA. Front Line is seriously concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Sukeina Idrissi.

Front Line urges the Moroccan authorities to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Sukeina Idrissi, as Front Line believes that she is being held solely as a result of her legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights;

2. Carry out an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation into the arrest and detention of Sukeina Idrissi;

3. Ensure that the treatment of Sukeina Idrissi, while in detention, adheres to all those conditions set out in the '/Basic Principles for Treatment of Prisoners, adopted in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 45/111 of 14 December 1990'/;

4. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Sukeina Idrissi;

5. Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Western Sahara and in Morocco are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.