Aminatou Haidar
Aminatou Haidar (Arabic أمنتو حيدار, DMG Aminatu Haidar, born July 24, 1966 in Akka, Tata Province, Morocco) is a human rights activist who fights for the political self- determination for Western Sahara.
Life
Haidar was born in southern Morocco in an area settled in the Sahrawis. She studied literature at the University of El Aaiun she graduated in 1994 with an exam from. She is a single mother of two children and lives as Administrative Officer in El Aaiun.
Notoriety she became known for her commitment to political self-determination of Western Sahara, a country which was a Spanish colony until 1975 and was then occupied in precolonial times by Morocco and Mauritania due to loose historical ties. While Mauritania withdrew in 1979 from the Western Sahara, Morocco controls since about two-thirds of the total area of the country. The United Nations require the holding of a referendum on the final status of the territory under international law (see Western Sahara conflict).
When Haidar in 1987 took part in a demonstration which demanded the holding of the referendum by peaceful means, she was arrested by Moroccan security forces. She was arrested along with 17 other women four years without charge or trial decision in a secret location. By his own account, she was repeatedly tortured during this time.
After 1991, she sat down several times and for better conditions of detention of political prisoners in Western Sahara. On June 17, 2005 Haidar was arrested again along with the human rights activist Fatma Ayach and Houssein Lidri during a demonstration. According to a report by Amnesty International added Moroccan police the protesters with batons to head injuries. The wounds had to be stitched in Haidar Hassan Belmehdi Hospital with twelve stitches. Subsequently, she was interrogated for three days and charged to a banned organization for alleged violent protests and of belonging. She was serving a seven-month detention in a prison known as the Black dungeon in El Aaiun. Between August 8, 2005 and September 29, 2005 Haidar went on a hunger strike to achieve better prison conditions for themselves and their fellow prisoners. In free foot they came, after 178 Members of the European Parliament had used in a petition for them.
Once again in the headlines came Aminatou Haidar in November 2009, when her., After a stay in the United States, where she had been awarded the Civil Courage Prize, from entering their home country is denied The Moroccan authorities arrested her at the airport of El Aaiun the pass off because she had indicated on the entry form as a nationality " Sahrauisch " (and not Moroccan ). After this act of civil disobedience Morocco pushed her onto belonging to Spain Lanzarote. The Spanish authorities told her the return to the Western Sahara on the grounds that she was not in possession of a valid passport. Then they began on 14 November 2009 on the Arrecife airport another hunger strike. On the 32nd day of their strike, on 17 December 2009, it had to be admitted to a hospital because of fluid deficit and bloody vomiting. Shortly thereafter, allowed her to leave Spain in the Western Sahara, where it arrived on the morning of 18 December 2009. Her case had previously made international attention and led to a political controversy in Spain.
Media and trailers denote Aminatou Haidar because of their non-violent resistance has long been considered " Gandhi of Western Sahara ". Deals of the Spanish government, which put her on several occasions for political asylum and citizenship in view, hit it off. For Haidar, among others, the Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the film director Pedro Almodóvar and the musician Brian Eno used a.
Awards
Aminatou Haidar has received several awards for her work:
- Juan Maria Bandrés Prize ( 2006)
- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award (2008)
- Civil Courage Prize (2009)
In February 2008, she beat the American Friends Service Committee before for the Nobel Peace Prize.