Ivry-sur-Seine (France), June 12, 2026 (SPS) – The Mayor of Ivry-sur-Seine, Mr. Philippe Bouyssou, has called on the French authorities to take action to ensure the full rights of Sahrawi political prisoner Naama Asfari, an honorary citizen of the French city, who has been detained by the Moroccan occupation authorities since the autumn of 2010.
The appeal was made in a statement issued by the mayor following the open-ended hunger strike launched by Naama Asfari on June 8 under the slogan “The Battle for Dignity.” The strike seeks the implementation of the recommendations contained in the decisions of the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the case of the Gdeim Izik prisoners.
The statement stressed that Naama Asfari, a Sahrawi human rights defender and honorary citizen of Ivry-sur-Seine, began the hunger strike to draw the international community’s attention to the failure to implement UN recommendations concerning his case, to denounce the detention conditions of Sahrawi prisoners, and to remind the Moroccan government of its international obligations regarding respect for human rights and international law.
The statement noted that Asfari has for many years been engaged in defending the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination and the liberation of their territory. It recalled that he was arrested in the city of El Aaiun in November 2010 and sentenced to 30 years in prison by a military court despite being a civilian, following proceedings that did not comply with the right to a fair trial.
The statement also recalled that the United Nations Committee Against Torture concluded that Naama Asfari had been subjected to acts of torture, while the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered his deprivation of liberty to be arbitrary and recommended his immediate release.
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