On Sunday, February 12, 2023, members of the Executive Office of ASVDH association conducted a remote reconnaissance visit to the association’s headquarters in occupied El-Ayun. The visit revealed that three surveillance cameras owned by the association had disappeared from the facade of its headquarters.
This latest violation against the ASVDH, in which the Moroccan occupation authorities bear full responsibility, is just one in a series of targeted attacks against the association and its members. In the past year alone, ASVDH has faced numerous obstacles, including the prevention of its members from registering at its new office on April 11th, 2022, the freezing of its bank account, the attack on its headquarters on February 7th, 2022, the destruction of its electric meter, which led to the permanent cutoff of electricity, and the physical and brutal assault by Moroccan intelligence and police officers on ASVDH members. This assault prevented them from reaching the association’s headquarters on the day scheduled for the first session of its Coordinating Council. Since then, the repressive and illegal measures taken against the association have made it impossible for its members and Sahrawi victims to access its headquarters.
These grave violations against the ASVDH represent a flagrant infringement on the right to association, assembly, and freedom of opinion and expression. These measures are taken to obstruct and prevent association members from carrying out their work of monitoring and documenting the gross human rights violations committed by the Moroccan repressive apparatus against defenseless Sahrawi civilians in the occupied parts of Western Sahara. By doing so, the occupation authorities seek to remain unaccountable, particularly after expelling all international observers, including journalists and human rights activists, and preventing them from entering the occupied areas.