Ibrahim Sabbar
I had spent ten years and a few months in enforced disappearance without trial. My family thought I had been disappeared and tortured to death as was common in Dakhla at that time. When reunited with them, my mother could not talk because of the severity of the shock and my father seemed far older than his age.
Ibrahim Sabbar is a Secretary General of the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH), which is an independent human rights NGO that operates in occupied Western Sahara.
In 2006 Mr Sabbar was sentenced for two years imprisonment shortly after the ASVDH published a report on arbitrary arrests, torture and ill-treatment in Western Sahara. In detention he and 16 other political prisoners were brutally assaulted by police officers, who violently beat them with batons. During the attack Sabbar's leg was broken and he was denied an access to medical treatment.
The dispute over self-determination with Morocco created deep political and security related tensions throughout the Sahara area and affects all aspects of life, including the work of human rights defenders. Sahrawi human rights defenders continued to be subjected to intimidation, harassment, questioning, arrest, incommunicado detention, and unfair trials.
