El Aaiun (Occupied Territories), 30 January 2022 (SPS) - The Moroccan occupation authorities at the occupied Airport of El Aaiun banned Thursday the President of the Sahrawi Body against Moroccan Occupation (ISACOM), Aminatou Haidar, from travelling to Spain, on the grounds that it did not have a Moroccan vaccination passport, refusing to recognize the Spanish-European vaccination passport that she holds.
Aminatou Haidar said in a statement to APS, that since she arrived in the airport, she noticed a large security cordon, and a presence of security elements in official and plain clothes, and since she entered, staff had been trying to obstruct her by various means, such as questioning documents and flight number.
The Sahrawi human rights defender did not rule out that the motive behind questioning the travel documents and the flight number was to push her to go to the Moroccan airways office in Agadir, to be physically liquidated, stressing that what happened raises many questions.
She added that after verifying the authenticity of the documents and the flight number, she was prevented from traveling on the pretext that she did not have a Moroccan vaccination passport, expressing her surprise that the employees of the Moroccan airline did not recognize the Spanish-European vaccination passport, although many of those she knew traveled last week with the European passport.
She indicated that the real reason behind her travel ban was the Moroccan authorities' fear of her human rights activity, especially as she intended to participate in a conference in Madrid and Vitoria (Basque region) on behalf of ISACOM in the second week of February alongside the Sahrawi Committee for Human Rights and the Association of the Families of Sahrawi Prisoners and Disappeared, under the supervision of the Basque Institute (EGOA).
She also planned to take part in organized activities in Geneva by the Robert F. Kennedy Center to report on the violations and crimes committed by the occupation regime over the past four years.
The Sahrawi human rights defender condemned the Moroccan occupation authorities' violation of her right to movement and travel, recalling that the Moroccan occupation authorities target all Sahrawi human rights defenders, by various means and methods, to intimidate and harass them.
Aminatou Haidar stressed that all these violations will not deter her from continuing her legitimate struggle to defend her rights and the rights of the Sahrawi people to freedom and independence.
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