Aminatou Haidar (in yellow; b. 1967) is a Sahrawi human rights-defender, political activist and former disappeared (1987-91). On January 17, 2006, Haidar was released after having spent seven months in jail. This demonstration received her, and she reportedly commented 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.”

Sahrawi is a term used for a group of Hassaniya-speaking Arab-Berber Bedouin tribes traditionally located in Western Sahara, southern Saharan Morocco, Mauritania (where they are also known as Moors), Algeria and less commonly, northern Mali. The term is especially applied to and adopted by independence-minded inhabitants of the disputed Western Sahara and the of use of their Sahrawi flag is forbidden.

Occupied Zone of Western Sahara. Jan. 21, 2006.

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