(AI Translated) Al-Na‘ma al-Asfari is a Sahrawi human rights defender, born in 1970, serving as Vice‑President of the Committee on Freedom and Respect for Human Rights in Western Sahara (Corilso). He holds a bachelor's degree in public law from Cadi Ayyad University. He is known for his continuous human rights activism and his defense of the Sahrawi people’s right to self‑determination, which has made him subject to harassment and arrest for years.

The Sahrawi human rights activist Al‑Na‘ma al‑Asfari was subjected to political arrest by the Moroccan occupation forces, being imprisoned in 2009 for four months because he carried a keychain bearing the Sahrawi flag. He was transferred among several Moroccan prisons between 2007 and 2009, including prisons in Tan‑Tan, Smara, Tiznit and Marrakech, before being abducted again on 7 November 2010, the eve of the dismantling of the Akrad Ezik camp, at a time when he is alleged to have committed the crimes attributed to him.

He was detained for five days in an unknown location, where he was tortured while in custody, blindfolded and hand‑cuffed, and forced to sign confessions under duress. Moroccan courts relied on these confessions in his trial, which first took place before the military court in Salé, Morocco on 13 February 2013, and then before the civil Court of Appeal in Salé on 17 July 2017, which sentenced him to 30 years’ imprisonment—a sentence deemed unjust by many local, regional and international human rights organizations.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture, in its decision on case No. 606/2014, affirmed that the Kingdom of Morocco violated several articles of the Convention Against Torture, namely Articles 1, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, noting that Al‑Na‘ma al‑Asfari’s continued detention is based on confessions extracted under torture.

Since his 2010 arrest, the Sahrawi human rights defender has been transferred among several detention facilities, including Salé prisons 1 and 2, the local prison in Al‑Arjat 1, and the central prison in Kenitra.

Despite many years having passed since his arrest, his case continues to raise concern among international human rights bodies, which consider the judgment against him an example of an unfair trial and grave violations of human rights.