Djimi Elghalia, 48, vice president of the Saharawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH). Pictured near El Aaiun city, in Moroccan controlled Western Sahara (Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic): 'I was born in Agadir, Morocco, in 1961. A lot of Saharawis used to stay at our home and because of this my grandmother was arrested in 1984. She was sixty; we never saw her again. In 1986 I moved to El Aaiun for work after I graduated in agriculture. The next year I was arrested along with five hundred others for trying to organise a demonstration on independence before a big United Nations visit. They held eighty including nineteen women. They interrogated me and used physical and psychological torture. They would put chemicals in my hair which made me faint. I was electrocuted on the arms and back and was bitten by dogs. Later they would laugh and say that there are no dogs and I must be imagining things. As a defender of human rights we are all about a peaceful solution. Whether the Polisario want to go back to war is up to them but as a civil society we are calling for a peaceful solution and this will come from international pressure.'.
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