(AI Translated) Mohamed Boyial is a Sahrawi human rights defender and is considered one of the Sahrawi political prisoners linked to the events at the Akeedim Ezik camp, where he was arrested in the context of the campaign that followed the dismantling of the camp in November 2010. He is currently serving a thirty‑year prison sentence and is detained in the local prison of Ait Melloul, Morocco, far from his family who reside in Laayoune, the occupied city in Western Sahara.

The political prisoner was born on 13 April 1970 in Laayoune, Western Sahara. He is married and the father of two sons. One of his most prominent roles inside the Akeedim Ezik camp was being appointed coordinator of the camp’s Special Dialogue Committee, the body that played a role in communication and dialogue during the protest period, a role that later became linked to his file and his arrest.

On 8 November 2010, Mohamed Boyial was arrested inside the Akeedim Ezik camp amid the events that followed the Moroccan occupation forces’ intervention to dismantle the camp; his arrest was specifically tied to his role as coordinator of the camp’s Special Dialogue Committee. From that date onward, he entered a long process of detention and trial that culminated in a thirty‑year prison sentence.

During his detention, he was subjected to physical and psychological torture, especially in the period preceding his trial. He asserts that the statements on which his trial was based were signed under torture, pressure and coercion, and that he had not reviewed their content before signing them. These allegations raise serious concerns about the respect for his fundamental rights during detention and investigation, particularly the absolute prohibition of torture and the inadmissibility of confessions or statements obtained under torture as evidence in trial.

Throughout his years of detention, the Sahrawi political prisoner Mohamed Boyial staged several hunger strikes to protest his detention conditions and to demand matters related to his status and rights as a prisoner. Among the years in which he undertook these strikes were 2011, 2013 and 2017, as part of the peaceful protest methods he resorted to in order to demand improved detention conditions and respect for his rights. For him, the hunger strikes served as a means to protest his situation inside prison and to express his demands while his detention continued.

During his detention he was transferred among several Moroccan penitentiary institutions, including the local prisons of Salé 1 and Salé 2, the local prison of Larache 1, the central prison of Kenitra, the local prison of Tifelt 2, before being moved to the local prison of Ait Melloul, where he is currently held. These repeated transfers, together with the length of his detention, have increased the suffering of the Sahrawi political prisoner and his family, especially given that his family lives in Laayoune, the occupied city in Western Sahara.

Judicially, Ahmed Salem was tried before the military court in Rabat on 13 February 2013, and then retried before the Rabat Court of Appeal on 17 July 2017. He was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment. The circumstances of these trials, in light of the statements concerning torture and pressure during the investigation phase, remain elements that require documentation and human‑rights monitoring, particularly regarding the extent to which the trials complied with the basic guarantees of a fair trial.