El Hussein Amaadour
El Hussein Amaadour (El Hussein El Bachir Ibrahim) is a Sahrawi human rights defender, former student movement leader and member of the “Sahrawi Center for Culture and Thought”, based in Laayoune. The human rights defender led many students protests for the rights and freedoms of Sahrawi people, particularly students, denouncing the occupation of Western Sahara by the Moroccan authorities. In December 2015, he led historical protests organised by Sahrawi students, demanding the Moroccan Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Rabat to establish a university in Western Sahara.
El Hussein Amaadour has continuously faced reprisals by the Moroccan authorities, such as being detained and tortured as a minor for taking part in a peaceful protest in Tan-Tan in 2008. In 2010, he was expelled from school in Tan-Tan and forced to continue his studies in the Guelmim region. In January 2019, El Hussein Amaadour fled to Spain to escape the Moroccan authorities' persecution against a group of Sahrawi students. However, shortly after arriving on the Canary Islands and applying for asylum, he was moved to a detention facility in Tenerife. Six days later, while his asylum case was still pending, the officials of the Spanish Ministry of Interior handed him over to Moroccan authorities. The human rights defender was subsequently detained upon his arrival to Morocco in January 2019, subjected to ill-treatment, and denied access to legal counsel.
On 21 October 2020, the Court of Appeals of Marrakesh sentenced El Hussein Amaadour to 12 years in prison, upholding the previous ruling in First Instance from 26 November 2019. Since his imprisonment in 2019, El Hussein has been transferred between several Moroccan prisons, including: Loudaya Local Prison in Marrakesh, Aït Melloul Local Prison in Agadir, Moul El Bergui Local Prison, and Safi Zaki Local Prison in Salé.
In November 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered an opinion on the detention of El Hussein Amaadour by the Moroccan authorities, making clear that allegations against the human rights defender are false, and calling for his immediate release as his detention violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Further reports detailed “grave violations of due process, including the usage of confessions and violations of the prohibition of torture.”
The issue of the status of Western Sahara remains unresolved, despite ongoing negotiations between the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario Front. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), established in 1991, has been extended but continues to have no human rights monitoring component. The dispute over self determination created deep political and security related tensions throughout the Sahara area and affects all aspects of life, including the work of human rights defenders.
