Aminatou Ali Ahmed Haidar (Arabic: أميناتو علي أحمد حيدر; born 24 July 1966), sometimes spelled as Aminetou, Aminatu or Aminetu, is a Sahrawi human rights activist and an advocate of the independence of Western Sahara. She is often called the "Sahrawi Gandhi" or "Sahrawi Pasionaria" for her nonviolent protests. She is the president of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). She was imprisoned from 1987 to 1991 and from 2005 to 2006 on charges related to her independence advocacy. In 2009, she attracted international attention when she staged a hunger strike in Lanzarote Airport after being denied re-entry into Moroccan Western Sahara. Haidar has won several international human rights awards for her work, including the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, 2009 Civil Courage Prize and 2019 Right Livelihood Award.
While her parents lived in Tan-Tan, a small city in southern Morocco with significant Sahrawi population (and former Spanish Cape Juby) where she passed her childhood, Aminatou was born in 1966 in Akka, in the Moroccan province of Tata, her grandmother's town, due to a bedouin tradition. She is not a member of the Polisario Front, although she considers the movement as the only representative of the Sahrawi people. She is divorced with two children, Hayat and Mohammed.
1987–1991 forced disappearance
In 1987, Haidar participated in a nonviolent demonstration against Moroccan administration of Western Sahara. Along with many other attendees, she was subjected to forced disappearance by Moroccan authorities and held without trial until 1991, when she was released. According to Kerry Kennedy of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Haidar was "gagged, starved, sleep deprived, subjected to electric shock, severely beaten – and worse" during her imprisonment.
Moroccan authorities gave no explanation for her detention. Amnesty International (AI) stated that she appeared to have been held for her peaceful advocacy for Western Sahara self-determination.
On 17 June 2005, Aminatou Haidar was attacked by the Moroccan police on her way to a demonstration in El Aaiún for the Western Sahara Independence Intifada. After admission to Belmehdi Hasan hospital and receiving twelve stitches for a head injury, she was arrested on charges of "participation in violent protest activities and incitement" and "belonging to an unauthorized association". She was then held in El Aaiún's Black Prison. She reportedly went on hunger strike from 8 August to 29 September to demand an investigation into torture allegations by fellow Saharawi detainees Houssein Lidri and Brahim Noumria as well as improved conditions of detention.
On 14 December, she was sentenced to seven months in prison by the El Aaiún Court of Appeal. AI, which had sent an observer to cover the trial, declared that "the trial ... may have been unfair. The organization is consequently strengthened in its belief that the seven human rights defenders may be prisoners of conscience". The European Parliament also called for her immediate release along with that of Ali Salem Tamek and 37 other "political prisoners" in a 27 October 2005 resolution.
On 17 January 2006, Aminatou Haidar was released at the end of her sentence. She stated that "the joy is incomplete without the release of all Saharawi political prisoners, and without the liberation of all the territories of the homeland still under the occupation of the oppressor".
2009 Lanzarote Airport hunger strike
On 13 November 2009, Haidar was detained by Moroccan authorities at the airport in El-Aaiún when she attempted to return from a trip to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain, to collect a prize. Under citizenship, she had refused to state her nationality as "Moroccan". The authorities denied her re-entry, confiscated her passport, and sent her back to the Canary Islands without it. Two Spanish journalists who had accompanied her were also detained for several hours. A Moroccan official called her refusal to call herself Moroccan as "an act of treason" and stated that Haidar would not be allowed to return to El-Aaiún until she apologized.
The Spanish newspaper El País later published documents demonstrating that the Moroccan government made three different flight reservations for Haidar prior to her return, indicating that they had planned to expel her in advance.
On arriving at Lanzarote Airport, Haidar began a hunger strike. She accused Spanish officials of holding her against her will by not allowing her to return to Western Sahara without a passport. On 17 November, the airport management firm Aena filed charges against her for disturbing the public order. She was required to attend court in Arrecife and fined 180 euros.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called on 9 December for Morocco to allow Haidar to return. Human Rights Watch stated that Morocco "must reverse its expulsion of Sahrawi rights activist Aminatou Haidar and allow her to enter her country of nationality". while Amnesty International condemned her expulsion as part of a pattern of "growing intolerance" by the Moroccan government.
A number of activists and celebrities also expressed support for Haidar during her strike. Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning writer José Saramago, who owned a home in Lanzarote, sent her a letter in November stating that "If I were in Lanzarote, I would be with you". On 1 December, he met her at the airport, stating, "It's time for the international community to pressure Morocco to comply with the accords about the Sahara".
Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel asked for a "humanitarian and political exit" for Haidar, and called on the Spanish and Moroccan governments to undertake dialogue to see "in what ways could the European Union, Council of Europe or even the United Nations intervene to avoid a tragic outcome and try to save her life, but not at any cost." British filmmakers Ken Loach and Paul Laverty compared Haidar to U.S. civil rights activist Rosa Parks, stating, "What tragedy would be for the non-violent resistance, and for the possibility of a pacific solution, that we let her die." Statements of support were also issued by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, Spanish actor Javier Bardem, US Senator Jim Inhofe, Guatemalan Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú, British musician Brian Eno, and Spanish novelist Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa.
On 29 November, a group of Spanish singers and musicians gave a free concert in support of Haidar in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, on the outskirts of Madrid. Performers included Bebe, Kiko Veneno, Macaco, Amaral, Pedro Guerra, Mariem Hassan, Conchita, Miguel Ríos, and Ismael Serrano. On 10 December, dozens of artists and activists sent an open letter to Juan Carlos I of Spain, asking him to intercede for Haidar with Morocco. Signatories included three Nobel laureates – Günter Grass, Dario Fo, and Saramago – as well as Pedro Almodóvar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Penélope Cruz, Antonio Gala, Almudena Grandes, Carlos Fuentes, and Ignacio Ramonet among others from India, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Colombia, Brazil and Angola.
Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos offered to arrange a Spanish passport for Haidar, but she refused his offer, demanding the return of her original passport. A Moroccan delegation led by the President of the Moroccan Senate, Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, visited Spain in early December 2009. Biadillah stated that the Sahrawi people are fully integrated into Moroccan society and occupy some of the highest offices in Moroccan institutions, and that no country would accept the return of a person who had "thrown away their passport" and "has renounced their nationality".
By 7 December, three weeks into her hunger strike, Haidar had become too weak to stand and slipped in and out of consciousness. A Lanzarote Hospital doctor reported that she might have only hours to live. Spain attempted again to apply for her re-entry to the country, but backed down when Morocco threatened to end cooperation on illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and other issues. On 11 December, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also contacted the Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri to request Haidar's re-entry.