The Sahrawi activist Aminatu Haidar (El Aaiún) denounces that the Government has denied her the residence permit in Spain that she had been granted for humanitarian reasons for 16 years; specifically, to receive medical treatment for her multiple health problems. “Aminatu is one more victim of the aggressiveness and administrative violence of this Government towards the Sahrawi population,” says her lawyer, Fatima M. Fadel.
According to the lawyer, Haidar had this permit since 2007 and renewed it “without problems” annually in Jaén, where she was registered. “Until 2020, just shortly before the pandemic. We requested the extension and they denied it saying that she had been out of the country for too long.” Fadel acknowledges that this permit requires complying with certain periods of stay in Spanish territory, “but Aminatu travels a lot, she had never complied with it and they had never taken it into account,” she alleges. After appealing this decision, Haidar obtained her papers, but her lawyer already sensed that that episode represented the beginning of a change in what had been her legal situation until then.
On January 25, 2022, his residence permit expired and on the following February 24, as ELPAÍS has been able to verify, he electronically submitted the corresponding renewal application in the registry of the Government Subdelegation in Jaén. “It was within the legal period of 90 days after the permit expired,” the lawyer emphasizes. Without having yet received a response, in May of that same year she requested a transfer of Haidar's file to Madrid, where the activist had settled to address her health problems. That year, she underwent surgery twice, explains Fadel.
The transfer was approved on the same day, but the surprise came a year later. Last May, the Government Delegation in Madrid notified him that it was denying him a residence permit for having requested it after the deadline, understanding that the request dated from May 2022 – when the file was transferred – and that it had exceeded the deadline. three months to request renewal once the current permit expires. “We appealed and, to our surprise, they told us no,” says the lawyer. “We have all the justifications, but it is clear that it is a political decision.”
Since November, Aminatu Haidar has been in an irregular situation in Spain. “If the police wanted to stop her and issue an expulsion order, they could do so,” Fadel laments. In that case, the activist – with a Moroccan passport since it was returned to her after a hunger strike in 2009 – would be deported to Western Sahara. “They will welcome her there,” her lawyer says ironically.
What worries Haidar most is not receiving the medical care he needs, which includes surgery. The activist suffers, according to her lawyer, from fibromyalgia, she has had surgery twice on her knee and once on her elbow, for which she is undergoing rehabilitation, and she suffers from chronic osteoporosis, “which requires continuous treatment and prevents her from exerting herself or gaining weight.” . “Over there [en el Sáhara Occidental] There is no one who wants to treat her and her rights are limited,” says Fadel.
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“When he finishes his medical issues, he leaves,” his representative announces. “And we'll see if they give him a visa to return to Spain” in the future, she warns. Other activists are denouncing difficulties in obtaining it. Thus, of the five residents of Western Sahara invited to the international film festival FiSahara held this week in Madrid, only two were finally able to attend; The other three were not even able to obtain an appointment to request an entry visa to Spain at the consulates in Agadir or Rabat.
Aminatu Haidar was sentenced by Morocco to seven months in prison in 2005 for defending the creation of a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in the territory of the former Spanish colony of Occidental Sahara, currently under Moroccan control. She served one month and, after pressure from the international community, she was released. In November 2009 she starred in the film known as Haidar case: The activist began a hunger strike at the Lanzarote airport when Morocco expelled her and withdrew her passport which, 32 days later, again due to international pressure and given the activist's precarious state of health, it returned to her.
El PAÍS has consulted the Ministry of the Interior and the Government Delegation in Madrid about the reasons why Aminatu Haidar has been denied the renewal of her residence permit without having yet received a response.
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