(AI Translated) Sheikh Binka is a Sahrawi human‑rights activist who defends human‑rights principles in their entirety. He was born on 12 January 1989 in the city of Aissa. He became involved in human‑rights work defending the rights of the Sahrawi people to self‑determination from an early age, serving as President of the Sahrawi Committee for Monitoring Human Rights in Aissa and El Aaiún, as well as being elected a member of the Executive Office of the Collective of Sahrawi Defenders of Human Rights in Western Sahara (CODESA), and joining the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, Aissa branch.

Because of this human‑rights activity, he has been arrested several times, including his detention as a minor in March 2006, when he spent six months in prison in Inzegan, Morocco; again in October 2006, when he was sentenced to six months in the Lakhla prison in El Aaiún, occupied Western Sahara; and his arrest by the Royal Gendarmerie of the Moroccan occupying forces on 8 November 2010 after the military attack on the Akerim Ezik camp near the city of El Aaiún, Western Sahara.

During his periods of detention he was subjected to crimes against humanity such as torture, and he was tried before a Moroccan military court in Salé, Morocco in 2013 and before a civilian court in the same city in 2017. Both trials lacked the guarantees of a fair trial according to reports by international organisations such as Front Line, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

After an unjust judgment of 30 years’ imprisonment was imposed on him, he was transferred repeatedly among several Moroccan prisons: Salé 1, Salé 2, Al‑Arjat 1, Tifelt 2, the central prison of Kenitra, and he is currently held in Bouzkarne prison, all of which are located outside the territory of Western Sahara.

Due to the degrading practices he endured during interrogations and arrests, he undertook several hunger strikes, one lasting 19 days. He now suffers from several chronic illnesses, including asthma, visual impairment and other ailments. Despite these obstacles and hardships, the Sahrawi political prisoner Sheikh Binka completed his university studies, obtaining a master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations in 2022.