Occupied El-Aaiun, 16 November 2025 (SPS) – Sahrawi human rights organizations considered that the release of two Sahrawi students after serving an unjust prison sentence in Moroccan jails due to their political positions does not negate the illegitimacy of the rulings issued against them, nor does it absolve the Moroccan occupation of its responsibility for grave human rights violations in the occupied Sahrawi territories.
In this regard, the Executive Office of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders in Western Sahara (CODESA) affirmed in a statement that the release came after “unlawful trials of four Sahrawi students and sentences that lacked all the standards of justice stipulated in international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
The statement added that the release followed “a series of judicial procedures marked by clear violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions related to the protection of civilians under the authority of an occupying power, including the right to a fair trial, defense guarantees, and refraining from fabricating politically motivated charges.”
CODESA also considered that the charges brought against the students before the court were part of “a systematic political targeting of their student and trade union activism supporting the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.”
Moroccan courts had issued unjust sentences last September against four Sahrawi students: Salah Eddine Essabar, Ibrahim Babit, El Hafed Birmane, and Nour Eddine Enflous.
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