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Ngilla el-Hawasi and Zahra Amidane
Ngilla el-Hawasi and Zahra Amidane, residents of El-Ayoun born in 1991 and 1993
respectively, described their mistreatment at the hands of the police after they
participated in a demonstration in 2007 at which a foreign photojournalist was
taking pictures. El-Hawasi said:
It was February 21, around 9:30 pm. There was a demonstration on
Skekeina Street, with about 30 demonstrators, all of us teens and
children. A Swedish journalist [Lars Björk; see below, section on Press
Freedom] showed up. We held up Polisario flags and banners with
slogans. Just after we started our chanting, the police came. One
police car went after the journalist. The other cars pursued the
teenagers. The police were in civilian clothes. Ichi abou el-Hassan and
the group of Moustapha Kamouri were there in cars. They caught nine
of the demonstrators and brought us to the police station. It was all
boys except for me and one another girl.
When we arrived, the policemen were shouting and threatening us.
The police were divided into groups: one headed by Aziz “et-
Touheimeh,” another by Ichi abou el-Hassan, and a third by
Moustapha Kamouri. I was in the last group. They put me on a room
where the policemen held my hands and feet while Kamouri beat me
with a water hose.
While he hit me, they asked me over and over, “Who brought this
journalist?” They pushed my face into the metal cabinets until I was
bleeding and half-conscious. Then one by the name of Rabi’
[presumably officer Abdelhak Rabi’] from the DST [the Direction de la
Sécurité Territoriale, one of Morocco’s security agencies] came in and
said, “It’s not the first time you’re here,” and he hit me in the mouth,
cutting my lip.
Then they brought me into the office of Aziz “et-Touheimeh” and asked
if it was I who started the demonstration. They said they had detained
71 Human Rights Watch December 2008