Your Excellency,
On 8 February 2016, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Agadir upheld the conviction of human rights defender Mr Mbarek Daoudi, and approved his sentencing to five years' imprisonment on trumped-up charges of “possession of hunting cartridges” and “attempting to manufacture a firearm”. The case was previously heard on 3 December 2015 by the Court of First Instance in Agadir.
Mbarek Daoudi is a Sahrawi human rights defender and father of five. Since retiring from the Moroccan army in 2008, he has advocated for the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people. At the time of the protests by Sahrawis in Gdeim Izik in October and November 2010, which took place in response to discrimination and human rights violations in Western Sahara, Mbarek Daoudi mobilised families in his home region of Guelmim and encouraged them to join a protest camp that consisted of nearly 7,000 tents and which was later dismantled by the Moroccan authorities.
The human rights defender appeared before the Court of appeal of Agadir on 8 February 2016, repeating slogans in support of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (POLISARIO), and claiming the right to self-determination for the Sahrawi people, and independence for Western Sahara. In response, the president of the court ordered his expulsion from the courtroom and proceeded to deliberate on the case without allowing the defence to speak. After more than three hours of deliberation, the court approved the initial sentence of five years' imprisonment that had previously been issued by the Court of First Instance in Agadir.
The human rights defender was sentenced in a separate case to six months' imprisonment by the Court of Appeal in Agadir on 9 April 2015, on the charge of “possession of a military uniform”. The decision was made after the Public Prosecutor had appealed the initial judgment in the case, in which Mbarek Daoudi was convicted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, calling for a stricter punishment.
Mbarek Daoudi was originally arrested on 28 September 2013 after his house on El Kharachi Street in Guelmim was raided by Moroccan police. The house of his father in Legsabi was raided without a warrant on the same day. During this raid, police officers found a weapon from the war against the French in 1936 that belonged to the human rights defender's great-grandfather. The possession of this firearm was subsequently declared as the official reason for Mbarek Daoudi's arrest.
I am gravely concerned by the upholding of the conviction and strict sentence against Mbarek Daoudi, as I believe the judicial action against him to be solely motivated by his peaceful and legitimate work in the defense of human rights and his advocacy for the right to self-determination in Western Sahara.
I urge the authorities in Morocco to:
1. Ensure the immediate and unconditional release of human rights defender Mbarek Daoudi and the quashing of his conviction;
2. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in the Western Sahara are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.
Sincerely,
