New attack by the Moroccan authorities on Sahrawi journalists | WSHRW
On Wednesday, January 28, 2015, the SADR TV journalist, Hayat El Khaldi, invited the Sahrawi journalist activist Mohamed Mayara and Zayou Abdelrahman, former political prisoner of the “Akdeim Izik” group to record a broadcast on Saharawi television. dedicated to the peaceful Intifada and about perspectives of the resistance for the year 2015. Two other journalists, technicians, were also present.
During the broadcast, the Moroccan intelligence services surrounded the Fatimatu Dahouar house where the recording took place. Fatimatu Dahouar is a Sahrawi militant for independence and a former disappeared in the secret Moroccan detention centers. She had invited reporters and lent her home for the broadcast. More than a score of Moroccan police cars were at the scene.
At 6:00 p.m., while Mohamed Mayara was leaving the house, the police and general information officers surrounded his car and insulted him by spitting on the car.
The governor (pasha) of occupied El Aaiún, Brahim Ben Brahim also insulted the journalist, threatened to “take him and his family, wife and child, and lock them up in a secret detention center as his father had been.” M. Mayara’s father died in the secret Moroccan prison of Agdez in July 1977 as a result of the mistreatment and torture he had suffered, after having disappeared since February 27, 1976 with his three brothers. After being insulted and spat upon, he was ordered to leave the place immediately.
A couple of minutes later, Mamine Hashimi, the director of the broadcast and the head of technical services of the Middle Team, when he left the house, he was attacked by the police and information services officers. He has been injured and his mobile phone was stolen by the police. He presented his complaint to the King’s attorney about these events after being treated. It was the governor (pasha) himself who carried out this attack.
The other journalists Mohamed Saleh Zerouali and Leili Hamoud left the house around midnight, when all the policemen had left. It is not the first time that journalists have been attacked by the Moroccan police for their media activities.
Leili Hamoud spent 8 months in prison in 2010-2011, Mohamed Saleh Zerouali was detained, interrogated and tortured four times since 2011, Mamine Hachimi was detained in Tan Tan in November 2011 and interrogated and tortured for a week, without his family knowing Where was it.
