In Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, the family of a political prisoner who has been on hunger strike since early January was denied access to see him and warned he could be in critical condition or even dead. Mohamed Lamin Haddi has also reportedly been threatened with retaliation and death. This is Haddi’s mother.

Mohamed Lamin Haddi’s mother: “If he is still alive, they should allow us to visit him. And if he is dead, they should give us his remains. I will not move from here until I meet my son. Let them arrest or kill me or blow me away. I just can’t bear life without him.”

Haddi is part of a group of political prisoners who received harsh sentences after the violent dismantlement of the protest camp known as Gdeim Izik, which Noam Chomsky called the first uprising of the Arab Spring.

Meanwhile, 100 Sahrawi organizations published an open letter to President Biden asking him to reverse Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. They wrote, “The issue of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, is easy to understand. It is not an ethnic conflict or a civil war, but a basic issue of decolonization not yet resolved.”