| Sidi Mohammed Daddach سيدي محمد دداش |
|
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 Guelta Zemmur, Spanish Sahara |
| Residence | El Aaiún, Western Sahara |
| Ethnicity | Sahrawi |
| Known for | Human rights defender, Political activist |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
| Children | three |
| Parents | Enguia Bakay Lahbib (mother) |
| Awards | Rafto prize, Badajoz Bar Association Human Rights Award |
Sidi Mohammed Daddach (Arabic: سيدي محمد دداش) (b. 1957 in Guelta Zemmur, Western Sahara) is a Sahrawi human rights defender & political activist, and former political prisoner for 24 years, being the second longest-condemn of a political prisoner in Africa, after Nelson Mandela. For that reason he's often called "North African Mandela"[1][2] or "Sahrawi Mandela".[3][4]
Imprisoned for more than two decades by the Moroccan authorities, Daddach has become an important symbol of Western Sahara’s struggle for self-determination, as the Sahrawi activist who has spent more years in Moroccan prisons. He has spoken forcefully about Morocco’s human rights violations, and drawn the world's attention to the hundreds of Sahrawis who have "disappeared" after the Moroccan invasion in 1975.
In 1973 he joined the Polisario Front, the Western Sahara national liberation movement.[5] In early 1976, as the Moroccan & Mauritanian troops invaded Western Sahara, Daddach fled with some friends trying to reach Tindouf to join the Polisario Front troops (Sahrawi People's Liberation Army), but their jeep was gunned & intercepted by Moroccan troops near Amgala. After two years of imprisonment (first in a militar base in Marrakech, then in a subterranean cell), he was forced to join the Moroccan Army.[4]
Daddach was again arrested & badly injured in August 1979, when he tried to defect with other soldiers, and sentenced to death on April 7, 1980 for alleged "high treason".[1] He was imprisoned in Kenitra prison. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1994.[5] On November 7, 2001, he was released by a royal amnesty,[6] after years of campaigning for his liberation by Amnesty International (who declared him prisoner of conscience in 1997) and other human rights organizations, such as the Sahrawi group AFAPREDESA.
In 2002 he was awarded the Rafto Prize for his efforts,[7] and after some difficulties obtaining a passport, he was finally able to go to collect the prize in Norway, where he also met his mother for the first time since 1975 - she presently lives in exile in the refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria -.
In 2009, he was awarded with the Human Rights Award of the Badajoz Bar Association, for his defense of Human Rights. The prize was given by Guillermo Fernández Vara, president of Extremadura.
He is one of very few leading human rights-activists who have not been jailed during the political protests that began in May 2005, dubbed the "Independence Intifada" by Sahrawi sympathizers. Still, he has been repeatedly pressured and harassed by Moroccan security services since his release.[8][9][10]