NVI Board Chair, Rafif Jouejati reporting from Syria
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The World Cup, Human Rights, and the Occupation Nobody's Talking About
The World Cup is back, and with it, all the contradictions that make football's biggest stage a mirror for the world's biggest failures. As billions of fans tune in to watch their teams compete across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, now is exactly the moment to ask: whose stories get told, and whose get buried?
For this year’s event, FIFA adopted a formal Human Rights Framework for 2026, committing all host cities to be "guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights." It was meant to be the first World Cup with enforceable human rights protections. Instead, Amnesty International's pre-tournament report, Humanity Must Win: Defending Rights, Tackling Repression at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, already described the U.S, host to 78 of the 104 games, as facing a human rights emergency, due to events such as the mass detention and arbitrary arrests by ICE agents, severe restrictions on peaceful protest, threats to media freedom, and the travel bans imposed by the Trump administration, unabling fans, teams and staff from countries to be there to support their national teams. And yet FIFA, which did not respond in writing to these organization's letters about immigration enforcement at tournament venues, saw fit to award its first-ever FIFA Peace Prize to President Trump in December 2025.
In addition, as the world's eyes turn to the pitch, one occupation remains almost entirely absent from the conversation. On June 13, 2026, Morocco's national team plays its first match, in New Jersey, to face Brazil. It’s Morocco's biggest moment in recent football memory, and the match is expected to draw a global audience of hundreds of millions, but almost nobody is talking about Western Sahara.
Morocco has occupied the majority of Western Sahara, a territory the United Nations still recognizes as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, since Spain left in 1975. The Sahrawi people, represented internationally by the Polisario Front, have been fighting for self-determination for over fifty years. The territory remains one of the last unresolved colonial situations on the African continent and is often called Africa's last colony.
The Moroccan government's relationship with sport and international visibility is not accidental. Analysts have long pointed to Morocco's aggressive hosting of major sporting events as part of a deliberate strategy to use sport to normalize its sovereignty claims over occupied territory and to build goodwill among African and international institutions. This is sportswashing: the use of sport's global platform to obscure political realities and human rights violations.
Within Morocco itself, criticism of this spending has been met with force. In 2025, a youth protest movement known as GenZ212 emerged, calling for sweeping reforms and questioning the government's expenditure on mega sporting events including the Africa Cup and the 2030 World Cup. The response from Moroccan authorities was severe: police used lethal force, killing three people and injuring dozens.
Freedom House has consistently rated the occupied Western Sahara territories among the least free places in the world. International human rights monitors face significant obstacles to accessing the territory. Human rights defenders, journalists, and Sahrawi activists face routine surveillance, arbitrary detention, harassment and deportation by Moroccan occupation agents.
Sport is never just sport. If 2026 is uncomfortable, 2030 promises to be even more so, with the next World Cup being jointly hosted by Morocco, Portugal, and Spain, the first edition to span both Europe and Africa, and the first to be held in Morocco at all. From a footballing standpoint, the symbolism is genuinely powerful. From a human rights standpoint, the irony is sharp. The 2030 World Cup will inevitably function as a validation of Moroccan governance, including the occupation of Western Sahara, on a global stage. Meanwhile, the Sahrawi refugees who have lived in camps in Tindouf, Algeria for half a century will watch their occupier's country host the planet's most-watched sporting event.
The Sahrawi people are not asking the world to hate Moroccan football. They are asking the world not to forget them while it watches. They are asking that the extraordinary visibility that comes with a World Cup appearance not be allowed to function as a shield for occupation.
What You Can Do
- Learn about Western Sahara's history and the Sahrawi people's nonviolent resistance movement.
- Follow organizations like Nonviolence International, Solidarity Rising, Western Sahara Resource Watch and Sahrawi Voices for updates and resources.
- Amplify Sahrawi voices year-round.
- Engage your elected representatives about your government's position on Western Sahara's self-determination.
- Join us at the Sahrawi Solidarity Summit, January 4–7, 2027, in the refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria — co-organized by Solidarity Rising, Nonviolence International, and the International Peace Research Association, and Sahrawi partners.
Faith Leaders’ Call for Boycott and Divestment in Response to Morocco’s Occupation of Western Sahara
The Western Sahara Solidarity Committee (WSSC) has drafted a Faith Leaders’ Call for Boycott and Divestment in Response to Morocco’s Occupation of Western Sahara. We invite you to add your name or organization to this sign-on letter, that reflects longstanding faith commitments to human dignity, justice, peace, and respect for international law, and calls for nonviolent economic action where prolonged occupation persists despite decades of legal affirmation.
This letter was an outcome of a webinar entitled The Struggle of Western Sahara for Self-Determination, organized by the WSSC, Nonviolence International and Fellowship of Reconciliation, and had David Wildman from the United Methodist Church as a panelist. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.
Western Sahara—widely recognized as Africa’s last remaining colony—has been under Moroccan occupation since 1975, notwithstanding an International Court of Justice ruling and repeated United Nations resolutions affirming the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. This occupation has resulted in a long standing refugee crisis, human rights violations including torture, sexual violence, theft of land and natural resources, while limiting freedom of movement and speech.
In 2025, the UN Security Council renewed the mandate of MINURSO and again described Morocco’s autonomy proposal as “serious and credible” within negotiations, but did not endorse Moroccan sovereignty or replace the right to self-determination with autonomy imposed without consent; the UN General Assembly continues to affirm that the territory’s final status remains unresolved under international law.
The urgency of this letter has grown as the Trump administration has sought to advance Morocco’s autonomy plan outside the UN framework—building on its 2020 recognition of Moroccan sovereignty and consistent with a broader pattern of circumventing international law, including through unilateral recognition, coercive measures against Venezuela, and the weaponization of domestic legal authorities to override multilateral norms.
In line with the 2024 United Methodist Church Resolution, this letter calls on faith communities to engage in principled boycott and divestment from Moroccan government bonds and state-linked economic activities that sustain the occupation. Signing affirms moral and legal principles—not partisan alignment—and offers a collective faith-based witness in solidarity with the Sahrawi people.
For any further questions, please feel free to contact the Western Sahara Solidarity Committee by email at [email protected]. If you would like to further support his project, please consider making a donation here.
Resources on Western Sahara
Organizations
Western Sahara Solidarity Committee: https://wssc.us/ & https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/wssc_western_sahara_solidarity_committee
Nonviolence International https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/western_sahara
Sahrawi Association in the USA (SAUSA): https://www.instagram.com/sahrawiusa/ & https://www.facebook.com/sahrawiusa/
Karama Sahara: https://karamasahara.org/
Western Sahara Resource Watch: https://wsrw.org/en
US Campaign for Western Sahara: freewesternsahara.org
Sandblast Arts: https://sandblast-arts.org/
Documentaries
3 Stolen Cameras: https://www.3stolencameras.com/the-film/
Sons of the Clouds: https://www.filmlinc.org/films/sons-of-the-clouds/
A Light of Hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY1bfcnG3Js
Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8AWG1tbNfA
Gdeim Izik - The Sahrawi Resistance Camp: https://youtu.be/z034H97gvN8
Events
FISAHARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
April 29-05 May, 2026 | Tindouf, Algeria
https://festivalsahara.org/en/
SAHRAWI SOLIDARITY SUMMIT 2027
4-7 January, 2027 | Tindouf, Algeria
https://solidarityrising.com/summit2027/
Independent Media
EquipeMedia Sahara: https://www.youtube.com/@EquipeMedia / https://www.facebook.com/equipemedia/
Books & Articles
https://wsahara.stephenzunes.org/
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Maria.J.Stephan_Civilian-Jihad-EN.pdf Chapter in this book by Salka Barca & Stephen Zunes on "Nonviolent Struggle for Self-Determination in the Western Sahara”
A compiled list of some publicly available resources for learning about Western Sahara (from documentaries to books to articles and more): https://solidarityrising.com/territory/western-sahara/
https://nomadshrc.org/catalogue/public/
If anyone would like us to help organize a meeting on Western Sahara for your organizations or colleagues, please reach out to: [email protected]
On International Human Rights Day, Sahrawis Under Moroccan Occupation Need Urgent Attention
Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara
10 December 2025
On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, the Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara wishes to draw the attention of the international community to the serious and persistent deterioration of fundamental rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, where the Sahrawi people continue to face a climate of repression, impunity and systematic violence. This day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reminds us that dignity, justice and freedom must be universal. However, for thousands of Sahrawis under Moroccan occupation, these principles continue to be denied on a daily basis five years after US President Donald Trump illegally recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara, emboldening Morocco to heighten its repression and contributing to a climate of impunity in the territory.
A Pattern of Systematic Violations
According to data from the latest report published this year by the Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara, the situation in the occupied territory shows a pattern of systematic repression against human rights defenders, who face daily harassment, constant surveillance and restrictions on their mobility. Sahrawi activists who carry out peaceful documentation and advocacy work suffer physical and verbal attacks, while Sahrawi organizations face increasing obstacles to carrying out their work, including the confiscation of materials, the impossibility of holding meetings and the forced closure of spaces. Added to this are arbitrary detentions and trials without guarantees. Many people are arrested without a warrant for participating in peaceful demonstrations or expressing critical opinions. Judicial proceedings lack transparency, are based on forced confessions, and often take place without the accused having adequate defense. These practices result in disproportionate sentences that seek to discourage Sahrawi social and political activism. There is also excessive use of force against demonstrators and the civilian population, accompanied by night-time raids, destruction of property and threats against Sahrawi families. Several reports document cases of torture, cruel treatment and ill-treatment in detention centers, further aggravating the humanitarian situation. Other grave violations include economic strangulation imposed on human rights defenders, land grabbing for colonial purposes, whether by the occupying State or by foreign investors, as well as gender-based violence weaponized against women human rights defenders. Furthermore, severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association and the press persist. Independent journalists are subject to persecution, while cultural activities and family gatherings linked to Sahrawi identity are frequently banned. Access to the territory remains blocked for international observers, non-governmental organizations, journalists and parliamentary delegations, preventing independent monitoring and fostering an environment of impunity.
Absence of International Protection Mechanisms
The absence of a permanent international mission with a human rights mandate remains one of the biggest obstacles to the effective protection of the Sahrawi people. In fact, for nine consecutive years, Morocco has continued to block the entry of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights into the occupied Sahrawi territories. Despite this, in May this year, in response to a complaint submitted by the Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara, the Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State (ASVDH) and the Collective of Human Rights Defenders in Western Sahara (CODESA), eight United Nations Special Rapporteurs have publicly denounced Morocco's ongoing campaign of repression, racial discrimination and violence against Sahrawi human rights defenders, journalists and activists in a historic communication. In the communication, the Special Rapporteurs highlighted 79 Sahrawi victims, emphasising "the widespread pattern of violence and systematic attacks that demonstrate racial discrimination against Sahrawis". The lack of independent observation creates an environment of impunity, where violations can be committed without oversight or consequences.
Urgent Appeal
On this symbolic date, the Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara makes an urgent appeal to the international community, UN member states, the African Union and regional organizations to:
1. Demand an immediate end to all forms of repression against the Sahrawi civilian population.
2. Release those arbitrarily detained for exercising their fundamental rights.
3. Guarantee full and unrestricted access to the territory for international observers.
4. Establish an independent human rights monitoring mechanism within the framework of the United Nations.
5. Protect Sahrawi defenders from reprisals.
6. Promote a fair and transparent political process, in accordance with international resolutions and the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people.
Finally, on this International Human Rights Day, we recall that the struggle of the Sahrawi people for justice, freedom and dignity is a struggle for human rights, which deserves urgent attention and international solidarity.
Contact: Working Group on Human Rights in Western Sahara ([email protected])
If you wish to support Western Sahara solidarity or learn more, please visit the Western Sahara Solidarity Committee website and contact them.
Fifty Years of Occupation: Nonviolent Solidarity with Western Sahara
November 2025 marks 50 years since Morocco’s Green March into Western Sahara, an event that reshaped the region and set in motion one of the world’s longest-standing, unresolved struggles for self-determination. In 1975, as Spain prepared to withdraw from its colony, Morocco organized a mass mobilization of over 350,000 people, to cross into Western Sahara.
Framed as a peaceful act, it was in reality a state-sponsored occupation, followed by military invasion and decades of repression. The International Court of Justice had just affirmed the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination, yet their homeland was divided and occupied, leading to their exile in the Algerian city of Tindouf, where about 174.000 continue to live in refugee camps to this day.
Half a century later, the consequences of that march endure. Families remain separated by the 2,700km Moroccan military wall — one of the longest and most heavily mined barriers in the world. In the occupied territories, Saharawi activists face imprisonment, harassment, and the denial of basic rights. In the refugee camps in Tindouf, generations have grown up in exile, sustained by community resilience and an unbroken commitment to their cause.
Despite the immense challenges of occupation and exile, the Saharawi struggle has long embodied the principles of nonviolent resistance. Saharawi activists, many of them women and youth, continue to advocate for justice through peaceful protest, human rights documentation, international legal appeals, and global awareness campaigns.
Western Sahara remains Africa’s last colony, yet the international community too often looks away. Decades of UN resolutions affirm the Saharawi right to self-determination, but the promised referendum has never taken place. Meanwhile, the exploitation of Saharawi natural resources, from phosphates to fisheries to renewable energy, continues without their consent.
Last week, the UN adopted a resolution on Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal, backed by countries including the U.S, U.K, France and Spain, sidelining the Polisario Front’s long-standing call for a referendum.
On this 50th anniversary of the Green March, Nonviolence International calls on:
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Governments to uphold international law and support the long-delayed referendum on self-determination and reject Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal.
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Companies to end the exploitation of Western Sahara’s resources without the consent of its people.
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Media and educators to amplify Saharawi voices silenced by the media blackout on the region.
- Activists and civil society to engage and donate to projects, such as the Western Sahara Solidarity Campaign, that embody the spirit of nonviolent action.
As we mark fifty years since the Green March, and the recent UN discussions, solidarity with the Saharawi people is more urgent than ever. Their steadfast commitment to dignity, justice, and nonviolence in the face of occupation offers a moral compass for the world. True peace cannot be built on occupation or erasure, it must be grounded in justice and self-determination.
NVI Activists Visit Occupied Western Sahara and are Deported by Morocco
El Aaiún (Layounne), Occupied Western Sahara – On Sunday, August 24, Moroccan agents expelled two activists with Nonviolence International – Elaf Hasan and Bianca Peracchi Afonso – who had traveled to Western Sahara to experience Saharawi culture and to meet those who currently live under Moroccan occupation.
Bianca Afonso reported, “I was shocked by the mis-treatment we experienced in El Aaiún by the Moroccan agents. This pales in comparison to the repression and abuses that the Sahrawi people shared with me as they live under illegal occupation.”
According to the International Court of Justice and most countries, Morocco’s occupation and annexation of the Western Sahara is illegal and not recognized.
Prior to their expulsion, the pair had met in Villa Cisneros (Dakhla), Western Sahara, with Saharawis and toured their communities. They witnessed the disparity between the downtown dominated by Moroccan tourist businesses and poor Saharawi communities that have been displaced to its outskirts. They posed for a photo with the human rights defenders and former political prisoners with the Western Sahara flag which was widely circulated after their deportation.
After a bus trip through 7 military checkpoints to El Aaiún, the capital of Western Sahara, they were seized by unknown agents of the Moroccan government who deported and accompanied them to Morocco and all the way to the US and Spain.
Elaf Hasan said “I enjoyed the warmth of the people, the stunning beaches and dunes and the taste of authentic Saharawi tea. It is important that people around the world become aware of the plight of the Saharawi people.”
Nonviolence International views the deportations as part of a longstanding pattern of silencing international observers and restricting independent reporting from Western Sahara.
“This expulsion demonstrates Morocco’s fear of transparency,” said NVI founder, Dr. Mubarak Awad, “Instead of allowing peaceful visitors to engage with Saharawi communities, the occupation forces illegally respond with falsehoods and deportations. Just as Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, so must Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara end.”
Western Sahara Solidarity Committee
Who We Are?
- The Western Sahara Solidarity Committee (WSSC) was formed in 2025 to help support the struggle for self-determination in Western Sahara, which has increasingly come under attack by its occupier, Morocco, and western countries who are promoting the ongoing colonization of Western Sahara under the guise of autonomy.
How Did We Start?
- In March of 2022, a group of unarmed civilian protectors gained entrance into Western Sahara to serve as witnesses to the Moroccan siege on the home of Sahrawi human rights defenders Sultana and Luara Khaya. The Khaya sisters are members of the Saharawi Organ against the Moroccan Occupation (ISACOM), an organization founded in September 2020 to advocate for the right of non-violent self-determination for people in Western Sahara and to work for the release of Saharawi political prisoners.
- The individuals who helped organize that trip, together with new volunteers and Sahrawi organizers, have formed the WSSC as a means to draw attention to the ongoing struggle which has persevered since the United Nations' first call for decolonization in 1965 and the formation of the indigenous Sahrawi independence movement in 1973.
Modern Day Imperialism in Western Sahara
- Since November 2020, Moroccan authorities have intensified their crackdown on pro-independence Sahrawi activists through arrests, ill-treatment, and harassment aimed at silencing dissent. Amnesty International documented abuses against 22 individuals, including torture, house raids, and detention for peaceful acts like social media posts, protests, and displaying the Sahrawi flag. Such repression followed by clashes in Al Guerguerat, where Moroccan forces dismantled a peaceful Sahrawi protest camp.
- Both Western Sahara and Palestine are recognized by the United Nations as non-self-governing territories with unresolved status. Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, while Israel asserts control over the West Bank, East Jerusalem. In both cases, the indigenous populations–Sahrawis and Palestinians–continue to demand self-determination, which is systematically denied by the occupying power.
- The Sahrawi struggle In 1975, Morocco invaded the territory following the departure of the Spanish colonizers, and has occupied Western Sahara ever since. Following years of armed struggle, a ceasefire was brokered by the UN in 1991 which included a provision to hold a referendum on self-determination. That referendum has yet to take place.
- In recent years, the Moroccan government has been pushing an autonomy plan of its own creation and without the input of Sahrawis or their elected representatives, which would continue the colonization of Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty.
- As part of Morocco's agreement to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords (announced in December 2020), the United States under President Trump recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. This was the first time a Western power took such a position publicly. This was followed by Spain recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2022, Israel in 2023, France in 2024, and the United Kingdom in 2025.
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To be clear, although the governments of these countries have recognized Moroccan sovereignty, these moves have been opposed by members and organizations of their civil society. Western Sahara remains a "non-self governing territory" as recognized by the United Nations, and a plurality of countries support the right to self-determination in Western Sahara.
What Are Some Of The Values We Reflect?
- Respect for human rights to include the right to self-determination
- True decolonization rather than imperialism by other means
- A commitment to the principles of nonviolence
What Are Some Of The Approaches We Employ To Pursue Our Goals?
- Education and increased awareness of the history and current brutal occupation of Western Sahara by Moroccan forces
- Grassroots campaigns in support of the Sahrawi quest for self-determination
- Encourage U.S. policy to align with the ideals of decolonization and human rights
Fiscal Sponsorship:
- WSSC is currently under the fiscal sponsorship and support of Nonviolence International (NVI).
Nonviolent Resistance to the Occupation and Annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco
For those new to this topic, please scroll down to learn from the many resources below.
NVI supports Just Visit Western Sahara, a project of the Western Sahara Solidarity Committee. Our mission is to support the human rights and self-determination of the Sahrawi people and to encourage international tourists to visit the region. NVI has long supported Sahrawis who continue to resist the occupation and annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco. Invaded by Morocco in 1975 (with strong support from the United States), Sahrawi resistance has included both armed struggle and nonviolent action. NVI specifically supports nonviolent resistance and calls for an end to the Moroccan occupation. Western Sahara is recognized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory. In 1991, the UN promised to hold a referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. To this day, that referendum has not taken place.
In recent years, nonviolent resistance has been led substantially by Sahrawi women including the Khaya Sisters. In 2022, NVI in conjunction with other groups, intervened in the siege of the Khaya Sisters. At the invitation of the Khaya family in Boujdour, Western Sahara, US-based volunteers arrived at their home to protect them from human rights abuses and break the almost 500-day siege of the house imposed by Moroccan occupation forces. Sultana Khaya was escorted to Spain by our team on Jun 3rd, 2022 to obtain medical care.
In June of 2023, Wynd Kaufmyn and Adrienne Kinne who were participants in the intervention to visist the Khaya family, spoke powerfully of their experiences of the Saharawi people and Moroccan illegal occupation at the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. Please these 4 minutes videos and read more below the Saharawi people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsUYr25VRxw&ab_channel=KaramaSahara
Here is Wynd Kaufmyn's testimony!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFmpw8zsRn4&ab_channel=KaramaSahara
Here is Adrienne Kinne's testimony
September 2023 Waari Khaya and Sahrawi Women Protest During UN Visit.
"Sahawaris peacefully demonstrated in the capital city of El-Aaiún in response to the arrival of the United Nations Special Envoy to Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura."
Nonviolent resistance to occupation and annexation continues. The media release is here and the results of her beating by Moroccan authorities are shown below.
Sultana Khaya is touring the world speaking out against Moroccan occupation and abuses.
On February 7th, 2023, Sultana Khaya spoke to the European Parliament about her experience in the aftermath of a scandal in which massive Moroccan corruption of the European Parliament led to failure to win the Sakharov Prize.
In December, the Vice President of Parliament, Eva Kaili as well as other key figures were arrested in conjunction with allegations that they recieved money in exchange for favorable actions for Qatar and Morocco. " The Italian newspaper "Il fatto quotidiano", quoting investigators from the federal prosecutor's office in Brussels, indicated that the interference of the Moroccan regime would not have been limited to influencing the decisions of the European Parliament concerning Morocco, but would also have been focused on the "appointment of members of Eurochamber committees that dealt with sensitive issues for the Maghreb country", including that of 'candidates for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought'. See here for the full article. https://www.spsrasd.info/news/en/articles/2022/12/24/43391.html For more information on the scandal, watch the Democracy Now Interview.
The Siege of the Khaya Sisters in 2021 and 2022.
A report with photos can be found here.
US-Based Volunteer Adrienne Kinne interrupting the siege with Sultana Khaya and friends.
Supported by the Human Rights Action Center (HRAC), NVI and a network of other human rights groups, the international unarmed civilian protection (UCP) volunteers, Ruth McDonough, Adrienne Kinne, Merwyn De Mello and Tim Pluth visited the Sultana family.
Since November 2020, the Khaya Sisters had been forcibly confined to their home and the family has faced many forms of abuse, including home invasions, sexual violence and injections of unknown substances. The Khaya sisters have been raped by Moroccan security forces in front of their 84-year-old mother. Furthermore, their water has been poisoned, furniture and property destroyed, and electricity cut-off.
Referring to her experience, Sultana Khaya shared, “I am not the first Saharawi woman to be raped by the occupiers. I am simply the first woman to speak publicly about it. I have to expose the reality of the occupation. And I need to pave the way for the next generation of Saharawi women.”
Sultana Khaya is a Saharawi human rights defender whose work focuses on promoting the right of self-determination for the Saharawi people and ending violence against Saharawi women, through active participation in nonviolent efforts and demonstrations. She serves as the president of the Saharawi League for the Defense of Human Rights and the Protection of Western Sahara’s Natural Resources, and is a member of the Saharawi Commission against the Moroccan occupation (ISACOM). She is a nominee for the Sakharov Prize and winner of the Esther Garcia Award. As an outspoken activist, she has been targeted by the occupying Moroccan forces while engaged in peaceful protests, enduring abductions, beatings, and having one eye gouged out.
The US-based visitors called for an end to the rapes, freedom of movement for the Khaya family and all visitors, and an independent international investigation of these human rights abuses.
Grounded in international law, Unarmed Civilian Protection is a nonpartisan strategy that revolves around the use of nonviolent methods by civilians to protect other civilians under threat. Such protection is provided on invitation from local actors and supports local agency and infrastructures for peace.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other highly respected investigative groups have documented widespread detentions, the torture of dissidents, and violent suppression of peaceful protests by Moroccan forces in Western Sahara.
On 1 July 2021, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, condemned the reprisals against Sultana Khaya and expressed “particular concern about the apparent use of violence and the threat of violence to prevent and obstruct women human rights defenders in their peaceful human rights activities.”
Nonviolence International's History of Nonviolent Action in Western Sahara
NVI has been worked to support nonviolent resistance to Moroccan occupation since 1991.
September 2022, NVI launches an online pledge calling on everyone to support nonviolent resistance to all occupations and forcible annexations, whether they be in Western Sahara, Golan Heights, Greater Jerusalem, or Ukraine.
June 2022, Sultana Khaya is escorted to Spain for medical care.
May 2022, A 2nd delegation of US based visitors to the Khaya family were kidnapped by unknown Moroccans and deported from Western Sahara.
May 2022. Moroccan authorities repeatedly smash the Khaya residence with a massive truck to kill all of its residents and US guests.
April 2022: In Nonviolent Strategies and Stories in Israel-Palestine and Western Sahara, Michael Beer and Osama Elewat speak with the Metta Center for Nonviolence on the power of nonviolence.
March 2022: NVI in conjunction with other NGOs, organized a team of US based activists to visit the Khaya Sisters and break the almost 500 day siege.
January 2022: Stephen Zunes writes in Foreign Policy in Focus that President Biden's refusal to reverse President Trump's policy on Western Sahara has dangerous global implications.
Zunes piece in The Progressive warned that the threat of further Russian aggression against Ukraine was real and noted that the Biden administration is in a weak position to lead an international response.
December 2021: Khaya Family Update
March 2021: Nonviolence International is proud to make connections across boundaries that for far too long we have allowed to divide us. This NVI webinar connects those resisting occupation from Palestine to Western Sahara. We believe in the power of active nonviolence and offer this conversation as a way to celebrate brave nonviolent leaders and our shared use of creative Nonviolent Tactics and Training to make us even more impactful.
(Video above shows Sultana Khaya - while under heavy surveillance - joining our webinar through Salka Barca. Note the 22-minute mark, at which Sultana Khaya dramatically confronts those who besiege her house.)
CNN featured Sultana Khaya’s powerful op-ed on a difficult topic that rarely gets the attention it deserves (Morocco: Western Sahara Activist Raped)
November 2020: NVI's Director, Michael Beer co-wrote this piece calling for an End to the Conflict in Western Sahara) and encouraging the US Government to change it policies towards Western Sahara.
Nonviolence International supports international law and opposes the unlawful and violent occupations of its neighbors by Israel, Morocco and Russia.
July 2020: Nonviolence International's statement on annexation.
(Mubarak Awad & Jonathan Kuttab in Western Sahara in 2015)
2015, NVI's co-founders Mubarak Awad and Jonathan Kuttab are some of the few Palestinians and Americans who have gone and done solidarity work with them in the occupied territory.
2014, Jonathan Kuttab visits Western Sahara to speak about nonviolent resistance to occupation, human rights, and international law.
2005, NVI invites a Sahrawi representative to speak in Bethlehem at the World Conference on Nonviolent Resistance.
1991-2013, NVI is one of the only organizations to lead protests in Washington DC against Moroccan occupation and abuse in Western Sahara.
Resources on Western Sahara
A BATTLEFIELD TRANSFORMED: FROM GUERILLA RESISTANCE TO MASS NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE IN THE WESTERN SAHARA
Dr. Maria J. Stephan and Jacob Mundy.
War Resisters International’s January 2021
Statement in the Face of War and Western Sahara Country Profile
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's nine minute video on Western Sahara
Democracy Now's hour long documentary: Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara: Africa's Last Colony.
An 2022 update on the Geo-politics of Western Sahara, by Jacob Mundy.
https://theconversation.com/unpacking-the-power-plays-over-western-sahara-186675
Donate to support NVI's ongoing efforts to promote nonviolence in Western Sahara here.
Dear friend,
Over the years, many of us have explored the greatest calling of nonviolence, which is not just the strategy, but as a way of being in the world. We have wrestled with questions of fear, displacement, identity, trauma, justice, courage, healing, resistance, and what it means to remain human in times that continually pull us toward division and despair.
For me personally, this long journey has also led me deeper into the teachings of a man named Jesus (not as a religious figure) but into his teachings in the time of his life, living under the empire and occupation. In that, I discovered the Beatitudes not simply as religious ideas, but as an invitation to inner transformation and to a different way of living and seeing. That led me to write my book The Sacred Awakening: Reclaiming Christ Consciousness.
This October (10-21), I will be joined by other amazing people, including Palestinian Artivist Rawan Roshni, in guiding a 10-day journey in Palestine called The Sacred Awakening Pilgrimage. This is not a typical tour or traditional pilgrimage. It is an invitation into a deeper inner journey through the teachings of Jesus, the Beatitudes, contemplative practice, community encounters, solidarity, reflection, and the living reality of this land and its people.
The journey is rooted in many of the same questions that have shaped my own work for decades:
- How do we break cycles of fear and domination?
- What does transformation actually require of us?
- What does it mean to embody love, truth, courage, and nonviolence in a fractured world?
- How do we stand in resistance and resistance to empires from a different energy than what we receive from them?
Together we will move through Bethlehem, the desert, the Galilee, Jerusalem, and other spaces, not simply to visit historical sites, but to engage them as mirrors for our own lives, consciousness, and calling.
This experience is definitely open to you or maybe someone you know, to people from all backgrounds, whether religious, spiritual, questioning, active in resistance, or simply seeking a deeper way of living.
If this speaks to you, I invite you to learn more here and sign up for a Q&A taking place on June 6th, at 10AM ET, 5PM Palestine time.
With peace & gratitude,
Sami Awad
NVI Co-Director
P.S. NVI will also be participating in the upcoming Resistance Studies Conference at UMass Amherst on June 18-21. I will be speaking on Palestine alongside activists that will address other occupied territories around the world. If you’ll be attending, the NVI team would love to know and get to connect with you there.
This article was originally published in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
The idea of Palestine as a testing ground for military and surveillance technologies has gained increasing attention in recent years. Analysts and researchers have pointed to how systems developed in the context of occupation are later exported globally and marketed as “battle-tested” tools for policing, border control and warfare.
Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, moderated an online salon focused on the use of Israeli technology tested on Palestinians and its global implications. The salon, held on April 19, was co-hosted by Nonviolence International and Voices from the Holy Land with the War Industry Resistors Network as a cosponsor.
For El-Tayyab the phrase “battle-tested” is not a metaphor; it is a mechanism. “When we describe Palestine as a laboratory,” he said, “we’re naming how surveillance tools, artificial intelligence targeting systems and weapons are tested on a civilian population living under occupation without any consent or accountability.”
And crucially, he added, these tools do not stay there. “Surveillance and weapons systems come back into our own policing, our own borders and our own wars.”
Jeff Halper, Israeli-American anthropologist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, situated these developments within the broader framework of settler colonialism. “You can’t come and take over another people’s country without genocide of some kind,” he said, pointing to both “cultural genocide” and “physical genocide,” the latter visible today in Gaza and, in a more incremental form, in the West Bank.
For Halper, this is not a conventional war with a beginning and an end. It is structural. He calls it “a permanent war against the Palestinian people,” one waged not only with weapons but with systems designed to control, surveil and “pacify.” Resistance, he argues, is not incidental to this history; it is built into it. “If you look at this as settler colonialism, it makes sense that a people would resist the takeover of their own country.”
Jalal Abukhater lives inside that reality in Jerusalem. “I cannot overestimate how much this regime of surveillance has control over Palestinians,” said Abukhater, who is a Palestinian writer and a policy manager at 7amleh (the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media). What he described is not simply a matter of checkpoints or movement restrictions. Surveillance, he explained, now reaches into the most intimate decisions of daily life. In Gaza, he noted, it is used to determine whether a family will be killed in their own home. Targeting decisions are made through machine learning, fed by the vast data Israel collects on Palestinian populations.
The impact is both physical and psychological. El-Tayyab, who has visited the West Bank repeatedly, described the physical toll of witnessing this up close. “Every time I’ve gone, I leave feeling very stressed. It really gets into your body. I just don’t understand how Palestinians can have so much tenacity.” For Abukhater, that tenacity is not surprising, it is exactly the point. “They want to make us feel so afraid that we stop acting, or resisting, or writing against them. But what it makes us do is become more smart about how we do our engagement, how we mobilize.” He listed what Israel has tried: annihilating villages, assassinating political leaders, jailing thousands. “But we’re still here, and it’s still ongoing.”
The infrastructure behind these systems is military and involves corporate complicity. Abukhater named Microsoft, Google and Amazon as holding contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, providing services, he said, during a time of genocide. Accountability, he argued, must extend to them. And pressure can work, particularly from within: employees can organize, refuse to work on technologies of oppression and speak publicly. Beyond that, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions remain powerful tools available to ordinary people.
Yet corporate complicity does not operate in a vacuum. It is reinforced by an apartheid legislative framework designed to entrench the same asymmetries. Halper pointed to recently approved legislation including an Israeli death penalty law for terrorism that, by design, can only be applied to Palestinians. In cases of documented settler violence against Palestinians, he noted, conviction under that same law would be effectively impossible.
And yet, all these structures do not exist in isolation from the broader architecture of control. They are part of a system in which the line between military force and civilian governance has been deliberately, and dangerously, dissolved. “Historically, there was a clear distinction between the military and domestic policing, between outside and inside,” Halper said. That wall, he warned, is coming down. In Israel’s case, its “military and policing systems are one.” The result is what he calls the “security state,” a formation in which democracy is preserved in name while security overrides everything in practice. “You can have a democracy, but security trumps everything.”
In different ways, both speakers returned to the danger of normalization, the process by which the unacceptable becomes unremarkable. “There should be a campaign against normalizing Israeli apartheid,” Halper said. For Abukhater, the stakes are explicitly global. “We’ve seen how genocide is normalized and accountability mechanisms suddenly mean nothing. The danger is that this would become normalized elsewhere too.”
Palestine, he said, is not only a crisis. It is a warning. “We are a warning. We are a laboratory. It’s like cancer, and if it’s ignored, it’s going to take over if we don’t address it now.” His conclusion was direct: “Don’t let this warning not be heard. The time to act is now.”
Video recordings of this and 69 other Online Film Salons can be found at the VFHL website: <voicesfromtheholyland.org/salonrecordings>.
Nonviolence Is Not Weak. It Must Be Re-imagined for This Moment
As critics question its effectiveness, the real issue is not whether nonviolence works, but whether we are willing to practice it seriously and deploy it strategically.
There is a common belief that nonviolence is too slow, too soft, or simply not enough for the world we are living in. Serious questions are being raised about whether it works, not from outsiders, but from within movements themselves. Writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates have questioned whether nonviolence alone can confront deeply entrenched systems of power. Voices like Cornel West have warned that it is sometimes used to contain resistance, asking the oppressed to remain calm while injustice continues. And thinkers such as Arundhati Roy have pointed to its limits in the face of militarized states with little accountability. These critiques reflect a real and growing frustration.
Photo: Nayef Hashlamoun Bilin, Palestine
In places like Palestine, that frustration is lived every day. In the open air prisons of the West Bank and Gaza, people are not simply navigating a conflict. They are living under a system that controls movement, resources, and daily life. Within these conditions, communities have committed to nonviolent resistance for decades—through protests, organizing, boycott campaigns, and international solidarity—yet the reality on the ground often remains unchanged. This leads to hard questions: Is nonviolence being ignored? Is it dismissed because it does not threaten power in the same way? Is the cost too high for too little change? You hear it clearly: we marched, we organized, we told our stories, and still nothing changed. If the world does not respond to nonviolence, what are we left with, militarism or international law? These questions are not rejections of nonviolence. They are demands that oppression much stop and we need answers that adapt to the realities we face today.
That skepticism about nonviolence also comes from a misunderstanding of what nonviolence actually is—and of the structures that sustain oppressive systems.If we look more closely, many oppressive systems are not sustained by internal control alone. They are upheld by external support. In the case of Palestine, Israeli policies are reinforced by powerful international alliances, particularly with the United States. This means nonviolent resistance cannot remain local. It must expand to confront the broader systems—political, economic, and ideological—that sustain injustice. The issue is not that oppressed communities are not nonviolent or strategic enough. The issue is that nonviolence has not been scaled to challenge the full structure of power. The terrain of struggle must widen.
My recent speaking tour across the United States, titled From Occupation to Empire: Rethinking Resistance, created space for these conversations from California to Florida. What became clear is that nonviolence cannot remain localized, or practiced by a few, or framed as a moral posture. It has to become a tool of the people. That requires restructuring how we engage it—grounding it in strategy, expanding its reach, and applying it not only in distant conflicts but also against the systems of violence in our own backyards that feed the violent systems in other parts of the world.
NVI’s global database of nonviolent tactics and the book Civil Resistance Tactics of the 21st Century expands our tool kit and helps us re-imagine nonviolent action to include music, visual arts, poetry, video, theatre, disruptive mutual aid, all kinds of creative interventions to unjust global trade and social contracts, non-cooperation by consumers and businesses and workers and pre-figurative resistance where we set the example today of the world we want tomorrow. Indeed riding a bicycle, in a world burning fossil fuels, is a daily act of pre-figurative resistance.
It is also important to name this clearly: systems of oppression understand the power of nonviolence. They do not ignore it because it is weak. They respond to it because it is a threat. They crush it with force when it begins to grow, and they discredit it when force alone is not enough. They frame it as naive, ineffective, or unrealistic so that people abandon it on their own. This is not accidental. It is strategy. Undermining nonviolence—through repression or narrative—is part of how power protects itself.
The question, then, is not whether nonviolence works in theory. The question is whether we are willing to invest in it in practice. The frustration many feel is real, but abandoning nonviolence is not the answer. Strengthening it is. Nonviolence is a disciplined method of struggle that confronts injustice without reproducing the same cycles of harm. It is not about being nice, and it is not about including every voice at the expense of justice. It is about building power differently—power that can challenge systems of domination without becoming them. That means treating it as a serious method of struggle—one that requires training, coordination, discipline, strategy, and long-term commitment.
Nonviolence is not the easier path. It is the most demanding one.