Morocco expels activist
2009-11-15 14:30
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Rabat - Moroccan authorities expelled to the Canary Islands on Saturday a Western Sahara rights activist who was recently awarded a leading peace award in New York, a security source said.
Aminatou Haidar had been arrested on Friday in the disputed territory's main city of Laayoune after arriving at the airport from the Spanish archipelago for allegedly refusing to carry out police formalities. Moroccan authorities accuse her of links to the separatist Polisario rebel group.
"After her stubborn refusal to follow normal police procedures and renouncing her Moroccan citizenship upon her arrival at Laayoune airport ... Aminatou Haidar was sent back by plane Saturday to the Canary Islands," the security source said.
Haidar, a leading defender of the human rights of the Sahrawi people, received the Civil Courage Prize from The Train Foundation in New York on October 21.
The mother of two, who lives with her children in Laayoun, said at the time that she risked being arrested upon her return to Western Sahara.
Gives courage
"This prize gives me the courage to pursue the non-violent struggle that I have been leading since I was 23," Haidar told AFP after receiving the award.
"I have been threatened with arrest on my return," she said.
Moroccan authorities imprisoned her for several months in 2005.
Haidar is a frequent critic of Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara after Spanish colonial rule ended in 1975, prompting an uprising by the Polisario for the independence of the territory.
Seven people were held on October 8 at Casablanca airport, after they visited Western Sahara refugee camps run by the Polisario at Tindouf in southwest Algeria.
The members of the group are to appear before a military tribunal in Rabat on charges of supporting secession, Moroccan press reported.
Their visit to Tindouf led to an outcry among political parties and Moroccan media.
On November 6, King Mohammed VI warned of a crackdown against "opponents of the territorial integrity of Morocco," referring to Sahrawis who support the Polisario Front.
Morocco has proposed broad self-government under its sovereignty in order to end the conflict which a string of UN peace plans has failed to solve.