Saharawi child victim to abduction and torture

A film taken by a cell phone’s camera presented the testimony of a 9 years old girl, who has been abducted by a group of policemen, taken outside the city of Smara and tortured and threatened. When the story of the child reached the Saharawi medias, it was spread through the net, so the Moroccan authorities asked the family to bring the little girl, and to say in front of the camera that all what is said on the net are lies. The young girl was so scared that in her testimony, she hardly holds herself from crying, but she was brave enough to say the truth about what happened with her. Transcript of her innocent testimony: The girl appears sitting in a room; she is talking to a Saharawi woman, who is encouraging her to go on talking and telling her story. The girl starts speaking: “I was playing outside our home… then police came and arrested me… they took me to a place where there are too many trees, and they started asking me questions, they said to me: you distributed leaflets, and you brought them from the house of your family, didn’t you? They started asking me many questions, and started beating me, one of them kicked me here (she points to her body), and they asked me. Then they took me back in their car and dropped me. I was so scared that they would go again to my family house to arrest me and beat me again”. (Talking about the second time she was subjected to interrogation before the Moroccan official news agency pretended that her story was made up and not true). She says: “When they took us again just now, they asked me: who was with you… and which car took you (the car of her kidnappers).. and asked me a lot of questions. They asked me if I remember them (the policemen who abducted and tortured her). They asked me, can you identify anyone of them if you see him, can you remember them? I said: Yes, I can. And they continued asking me questions, saying: who are the girls who were with you? I said: I don’t know. (The woman asks the girl: Did they say to you bad words?) The girl: “Yes they did. They said to us a lot of bad words, but we didn’t answer them… we didn’t say a word when they were addressing us bad words. After that they brought us near the milk shop. I harried upstairs and I hided and started crying, until Bteila (a woman) and her sister came, took my hand and took me to the house”