The hunger strike of around thirty Sahrawi asylum seekers in the Madrid-Barajas Airport reached 48 hours this Monday morning. Among the applicants, there is a singer, a man with cancer or a university student, among others, who came to Spain between August this year and last week.
One of the lawyers defending the activists, Fatima Fadeldenounces that the situation is “complicated”. The lawyer explains that this Sunday she spent almost the entire afternoon with them and that they transmitted to her “a lot of anxiety”.
The reason is none other than the conditions in which they find themselves: “They are subhuman. They have bedbugs all over their bodies and before going on hunger strike, the diet had been the same for weeks.”
For now, the activists are trying to survive on water and sugar and will not stop their hunger strike until they get what they need and have been denied: political asylum.
The lawyer, secretary general of the Association of Sahrawi Lawyers of Spain –APRASE–, insists that the majority of the cases that Spain has already rejected They belong to activists. “And we are not talking about simple indications in the application. They have proven that they are persecuted in different ways.”
Fadel points out that in the requests “there are videos of the activists being put in trucks and videos of the torture they suffered.” Others, he says, are the relatives of the activists, so everyone “proved that he was persecuted.”
The lawyer believes that the refusal responds to a clear intention “on the part of Spain and Morocco: leave them in the middle“. This means, for Fadel, sending them “to prison”. “Spain is doing nothing to give them asylum and Morocco He will take them to prison. This is the intention of Spain and Morocco.”
Some activists have already refused to return to Morocco. The expulsion, lawyers understand, is “null and void“.
“Human Rights”
The asylum seekers’ lawyer assures that one of them even expressed surprise at the refusals. “He looked at me and said: I thought that where human rights were not respected was in Morocco. When you desperately ask for protection saying that your life has been a persecution…”
Fadel assures that the student who requested asylum demonstrated the persecution suffered by Morocco by recounting how they prevent him from continuing his university studies.You have received a court summons at your home and he doesn’t know what he has done,” he emphasizes. “Everywhere they go, they are persecuted.”
Among the activists is also, according to the lawyer, “the brother of Bachir, one of the first to request asylum in Canary Islands“. “The mother and siblings were granted political asylum in France. Why the Spanish State “Are you refusing him?” he asks.
The singer, the lawyer points out, is called Aïssa. “He is being asked for asylum for his revolutionary songs,” he explains, and the resolutions are similar for all the candidates. “They have not even consulted the file.”
In the singer’s case, it was he who refused to be deported. “They put a express flight thursday” he insists.
The lawyer added that all of them renounced their Moroccan nationality upon arrival.They don’t recognize your passport and this procedure is open. They are stateless, but Spain does not recognize the Sahrawi State. The fact is that the special situation of applicants who meet the requirements of the right to asylum is ignored. They ask that their testimonies be taken into account. We realize that there are identical resolutions. There is a clear intention to eliminate them. “You cannot consent.”
The applicants also complain that they were not provided with a translator for their language.They put a Moroccan citizenwho speaks Daria. We speak Hassaniyya,” Fadel explains.
It may even be the least we can do. “This story of putting a Moroccan interpreter This is absurd. We have been fighting against this for a long time and they do not do it. “Why don’t you put an Israeli over a Palestinian or a Russian over a Ukrainian,” he continues. “Why don’t you put that before other nationalities?”
According to Fadel, the refusal of asylum has been going on for a year. “The Sahrawis do not want to leave the occupied territories, but Morocco is putting pressure on them, especially on the youngest, which is why it is opening the door to immigration for them,” he emphasizes.
Cousins of Sultana Jaya
The activists present in Barajas are, to a large extent, relatives of other activists and not all of them are on hunger strike. It is not for nothing that Fadel points out that “some of them are cousins of activists sentenced to life imprisonment by Morocco.”
Among them are cousins of Sultan Jayaone of the activists who became a symbol of the resistance Polisario Front inside Western Sahara“They have very complex situations,” explains the representative of 15 asylum seekers.
But the asylum seekers and the pressures they receive do not stop there. “Some of those who apply have been called to join the Moroccan army, with what that means for a Sahrawi,” he explains.
Another case is even more complex: “We have a deaf and mute person with cancer. This boy is an activist, he’s been at protests, he’s been photographed since he was young and he’s documented it. “He’s actually one of the people who’s provided the most evidence and documented his illness.”
She doesn’t wear it, but it is also found in Barajas A Sahrawi woman with her daughter. “She has developed an allergy and they have to be isolated. The case is being handled ex officio, but the girl is unbearable because of the situation and the mother is desperate.” In addition, there is another child aged one and a half years.
When could the hunger strike end? “We don’t know, but it’s a complicated question because of the way it was done, with the mass expulsions that have accumulated. The only thing we ask is that applications be assessed individually“.
Fadel thinks it’s a problem “only with the Sahrawis”but he doesn’t understand why.
For now, the hunger strike continues. They are only drinking water and sugar to survive, but they do not know how long this will last. Before the protest began, some gave up their attempt and accepted the deportation. Fayed is waiting to hear from one of them.We don’t know what happened to him. He gave up this request because he could no longer bear the conditions he found himself in here in Spain. But we do not know what happened to him once he arrived in Morocco.”
