As a long-imprisoned Sahrawi independence activist enters his sixth week without food behind bars in Morocco, global and regional human rights organizations are sounding the alarm and demanding his immediate release.
Naama Asfari launched an indefinite hunger strike on June 8 while being held at Kenitra Prison, located north of Morocco’s capital Rabat. His protest targets Moroccan authorities, demanding they comply with multiple United Nations rulings that have ordered his freedom after more than 14 years in detention.
Asfari’s incarceration traces back to his participation in the 2010 Gdeim Izik protest camp, a mass gathering of native Sahrawi in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara. The camp was organized to draw international attention to systemic human rights violations, widespread poverty, and systemic discrimination that Sahrawi communities have endured under Moroccan rule.
Erected in October 2010 on the outskirts of Laayoune, Western Sahara’s largest city, the protest camp was violently dismantled by Moroccan security forces in November that same year. Official and independent reports differ on casualty counts: rights groups estimate up to 36 civilian protesters were killed during the operation, while roughly 3,000 additional Sahrawi were arrested. Moroccan authorities confirm that 11 police officers also died in the unrest.
The violent crackdown drew broad international condemnation, and many regional analysts now point to the Gdeim Izik incident as an important precursor to the wave of pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings that swept across North Africa and the Middle East just weeks after the camp was cleared.
Following the crackdown, Asfari and dozens of other Sahrawi protest organizers were convicted of charges tied to the deaths of the Moroccan police officers. But United Nations bodies have repeatedly challenged the validity of these convictions. The UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) has confirmed that the statements used to convict Asfari and his co-defendants were obtained through torture and coercion, and has formally called on Morocco to overturn all convictions in the case. In 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also issued an official opinion ordering Asfari’s immediate release.
As his hunger strike enters its sixth week, Asfari’s family has shared alarming updates on his declining health. The activist has lost roughly 9 kilograms (nearly 20 pounds) since starting the strike, and he has refused to be examined by prison medical staff and halted his daily out-of-cell exercise.
The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an independent global rights watchdog, has become one of the most prominent voices calling for action. The organization reiterated its demand that Morocco implement both the CAT ruling and the 2023 UN Working Group order. In a formal statement, ISHR said, “ISHR is gravely concerned by the risks posed to Asfari’s health and calls on the Moroccan authorities to take urgent steps to safeguard his life and physical integrity.”
The case unfolds against a decades-long unresolved dispute over the status of Western Sahara. Morocco has occupied most of the territory since 1975, following the withdrawal of colonial power Spain. The indigenous Sahrawi people claim full sovereignty over the territory, and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front has waged a campaign for independence, including an armed struggle that spanned decades. Today, hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi refugees reside in camps in southwestern Algeria, while Sahrawi independence activists remaining in occupied Western Sahara face consistent political repression from Moroccan authorities, a pattern widely documented by international human rights groups.