By Rubén Tzanoff and Chaiaa Ahmed Baba
Abdo is a young Saharawi man who was kidnapped and later released by the Moroccan police after expressing himself on social networks for the freedom of his people. It is not an isolated case, because impunity has accomplices. The Moroccan regime also faces problems with its own people. The ISL condemns this aggression and supports the Saharawi cause for self-determination.
Independent media outlets reported the serious event. Through a social media app with a Spanish tourist, Abdo Tawab said: “Morocco out, long live Western Sahara.” This simple deed triggered his kidnapping on the night of April 20. It was a clear attack on freedom of expression.
Kidnapping, release and persecution
Abdo was taken from his home in El Ayoun, the most important city in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, by five Moroccan policemen. They put him in a car, tied his hands behind his back, covered his face with a black cloth, and took him to an unknown destination. After changing his vehicle, they beat him and threatened to kill him if he continued to declare his support for Western Sahara to any foreigner. He was later released, but the persecution continued as he was prevented from returning to his job at the El Ayoun bus station. That is why he denounced: “There is a general here who shows everyone my photo and tells them that if they see me, they must not let me work with them on anything…” Every time the police stop him in the street, they search him and repeat: “The Sahara is Moroccan and nothing else.”
A relevant cause
What happened to Abdo is not an isolated event. It is worth remembering the brutal attacks suffered by Sultana Khaya and her family in Boujdour, another of the occupied populations that belong to Western Sahara. The systematic violation of human rights aims to consolidate the Moroccan occupation and subdue the Sahrawis. However, 47 years have passed since the proclamation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the cause for its recognition is still relevant. It is kept alive by the struggle of Saharawi workers, women and youth in different countries, in the occupied territories, in the camps and in the clashes with the Moroccan army led by the Polisario Front. International solidarity also provides an important support.
Accomplices and partners of oppression
The violence and oppression of the occupiers has accomplices. The Spanish “progressive coalition” government, headed by Pedro Sánchez, remains silent in exchange for maintaining agreements that allow Spain to continue plundering Saharawi territorial wealth and for Morocco to repress immigration on the southern border of the European Union (EU). The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is increasingly complicit with the occupation. They are joined by Western imperialism, the EU and the Alawite regime’s new partner, the enemy of Palestine and the Arab peoples, the Zionist State of Israel.
“Hunger Protests”
At the same time, Morocco is a powder keg. Inflation in the first quarter of 2023 was 9.8%, basic food products increased by more than 15% and wages are insufficient. While poverty spreads among the population, Mohamed VI squanders fortunes traveling around the world with his friends. The King spends more time abroad than in Rabat. For these reasons, social discontent is on the rise. According to alternative media and social media posts, on April 8, there were coordinated demonstrations in 57 cities, which were called “hunger protests.” It is necessary to support social and democratic demands, among which support for Saharawi self-determination must be added.
Human rights and self-determination: two basic necessities
The International Socialist League (ISL) will continue to stand with Western Sahara. We stand in solidarity with Abdo Tawab, we condemn the kidnapping and attacks of which he was a victim. Those politically and materially responsible for violating human rights must be punished. To achieve this, an Independent Investigation Commission is needed, made up of personalities who defend human rights and based on popular mobilization and international solidarity. We promote the mobilized unity of the workers and the African and Arab peoples for the expulsion of the invaders. And we unconditionally support the self-determination of Western Sahara, as an indissoluble step in the fight for a just world, without exploiters or oppressors, for a socialist solution.
