Mustapha Abd Daiem put under tight surveillance and deprived of his rights as prisoner of conscience

The sister of the Saharawi human rights defender, journalist and short-stories’ writer, Mustapha Abd Daiem, informed UPES that her brother is put under tight surveillance and deprived from his basic rights as prisoner of conscience in the Moroccan local prison in Ait Melloul. The Saharawi journalist, member of UPES, is serving a 3 years imprisonment sentence because of his political opinions and opposition to the Moroccan illegal occupation of Western Sahara. Mrs. Khadija Abd Daiem, the prisoner’s sister, informed UPES that Mustapha’s health is deteriorating. The prisoner is suffering severe head-aches, toothaches and problems in his back “because the penitentiary administration didn’t give him a bed like other prisoners. He has to sleep on the bare ground in this cold winter”. On the other hand, she adds, “he is only allowed to see the members of the family, and only for 15 minutes, though we have to travel all the way from Assa city to Ait Melloul, while his friends and comrades are not allowed to visit him”. With regards to the contact with the outside world, the administration put the prisoner under a real siege. He has no access to newspapers or magazines. It should be recalled that the Moroccan forces of occupation adopted these measures against Mustapha after he was transferred from the prison in Inzegan, to the local prison in Ait Melloul. The aim was to deprive him from the right to write, to publish his opinions and short stories on the pages of UPES website or in the Moroccan newspapers. The case of Mustapha Abd Daiem is getting more and more known to international organization especially Amnesty International (North Africa) and Amnesty International US. The international organization issued a press release about his unfair trial and the US branch is publishing an action on its page about Mustapha. On another level, a campaign of letters was launched in solidarity with UPES in its endeavor to support Mustapha. The first to express support were Japanese journalist supporting Western Sahara, followed by the Uk Western Sahara Campaign, and Australia Western Sahara Association. These campaign of letters is the first step in a bigger campaign that will develop in a second step to be a campaign of letters to Foreign Affairs Ministries in all countries that can exercise pressures on Morocco on the subject. “The campaign, UPES Secretary General, Malainin Lakhal said, will take other steps in the future, and adopt additional ways to put more pressures on the Moroccan colonial authorities, until Rabat knows that it is no use to arrest Saharawi human rights activists, writers or normal citizens, and that the only good option is to release the political prisoners and enable the Saharawi people to exercise their right to self-determination and independence”.