The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued a decisive ruling calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Sahrawi student Hussein Bachir Amadour, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence in a Moroccan prison.
Amadour was handed over to Moroccan occupation authorities by Spain in early 2019, despite having submitted a political asylum request in the Canary Islands—an action that constitutes a clear violation of international protections for asylum seekers.
The UN panel found that Amadour’s detention was arbitrary and unlawful, violating provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ruling highlighted that the Moroccan court relied on confessions extracted under torture, and that Amadour had been subjected to serious human rights abuses, including inhumane detention conditions, which forced him to engage in multiple hunger strikes to protest his deteriorating circumstances.
In a strong rebuke to Spain, the UN body held the Spanish government directly responsible for the unlawful extradition of Amadour, calling on the Spanish Ministry of Interior, led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, to take urgent diplomatic measures to secure his release—particularly given that Amadour had sought asylum on Spanish soil before being handed over to Morocco.
Currently, Hussein Bachir is suffering under harsh isolation in prison, far from his family, while his fundamental rights continue to be systematically violated. His health has severely deteriorated as a result of repeated hunger strikes, raising growing concerns among human rights organizations about the imminent danger to his life.
The UN Working Group emphasized that this case serves as a disturbing example of the oppressive policies faced by Sahrawis and the complicity of some European governments in facilitating the persecution of activists by regimes that flout international law.
In its final recommendations, the UN panel calls for:
Morocco to immediately and unconditionally release Hussein Bachir Amadour.
Spain to acknowledge and assume its moral and legal responsibility in this case.
The international community to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure to end the unjust suffering of this wrongfully detained Sahrawi student.
