(AI translated) Mohamed Embark Lfikir is a Sahrawi human rights activist who was born in 1978. In 2017, the appeals court in the city of Laayoune sentenced him to 25 years in prison in connection with the Aqdim Ezik protest camp, which was organized near the occupied city of Laayoune, approximately 13 kilometers away. Before his arrest, Mohamed Embark Lfikir was actively involved in human rights advocacy and participated as part of a delegation of Sahrawi human rights activists that discussed the human rights situation in Western Sahara. It is believed that these activities were the main reason why he was targeted and arrested by the Moroccan occupying forces.

During his trial in the appeals court, this Sahrawi human rights activist confirmed that he was kidnapped on November 12, 2010, from his uncle’s house by a group of police officers in civilian clothing who wore masks to conceal their identities. He stated that he was beaten in front of his family members before being taken to the local prison in Laayoune, known as “the Black Prison,” where he remained detained until June 17, 2011. Mohamed Embark Lfikir also said that he was temporarily released on that date but was immediately arrested again after leaving prison. He testified in court that the police records and confessions attributed to him were signed under torture and ill-treatment, and he denied that they were made voluntarily.

Mohamed Embark Lfikir confirmed that he was at the Aqdim Ezik camp on November 8, 2010, and that in the first hours of the camp’s dismantlement, he lost consciousness due to inhaling the tear gas used during the intervention. He added that his family members carried him for approximately four kilometers before he was able to walk another eight kilometers to reach his home in the occupied city of Laayoune.

The Sahrawi human rights activist Mohamed Embark Lfikir went on several hunger strikes to protest his conditions of detention and the denial of his basic rights. He participated in an open hunger strike in 2011 and another open hunger strike that began on March 1, 2016, along with 12 other Sahrawi political prisoners from the Aqdim Ezik group. They demanded that they be recognized as political prisoners, that the sentences imposed on them be revoked, and that they be released or, at the very least, transferred to prisons closer to their families so that their basic rights could be guaranteed. This hunger strike lasted for 37 days before it was temporarily suspended in response to appeals from families and various human rights organizations, after it had caused serious health deterioration among the strikers.