UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, along with other UN experts, questioned Morocco about the deteriorating health of Sahrawi human rights defender Mohamed Embarek Lefkir, expressing the severe detention conditions of this defender and the lack of medical treatment and family visits.
“We express our concern regarding allegations of Lefkir’s harsh conditions of detention and the lack of appropriate medical treatment,” the experts wrote in a communication sent to the Moroccan government last November and published this Tuesday.
According to the communication, Lefkir was transferred on 21 January 2021 from Ait Melloul local prison to Tan-Tan local prison, in southern Morocco.
Since his arrival in Tan-Tan, this Sahrawi human rights defender has been subjected to complete isolation and denied medical care, despite repeated complaints from his family.
In August 2025, his health deteriorated and the prison director denied him access to medical examinations and appropriate treatment.
The medication provided to him in prison was packaged in unmarked white paper, without any labels or medical information, which “raises concerns about its nature and safety,” said the experts.
One month later, Lefkir’s health condition deteriorated seriously, requiring his transfer to hospital.
However, he received “neither an appropriate diagnosis nor adequate treatment,” while his family was never officially informed of his transfer to hospital.
UN experts underlined that Lefkir does not receive regular family visits, as “strict restrictions have been imposed on his detention.” According to the experts, detainees were “subjected during police custody to various forms of torture and degrading and inhuman treatment, including threats and insults, slapping and severe beatings.” They warned that these actions “could violate, among other standards, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both of which Morocco ratified on May 3, 1979.” The UN experts stressed that these actions “also contradict the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, commonly known as the Nelson Mandela Rules.” They further pointed out that in 2023, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that the detention of 18 individuals arrested during the dismantling of the Gdeim Izik camp, including Lefkir, was “arbitrary.” The Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council have also expressed concerns about the treatment of human rights defenders in previous communications addressed to the Moroccan government, particularly over the past five years.
